Another settler tour

The ritual happens every Saturday. Dozens of armed soldiers and Border Police deploy in the Souq, so a smaller group of settlers can go on a tour. The purpose of show of force is to protect the settlers from the Palestinians whose land they are occupying.  

Soldiers begin to come out of the yellow gate, as shopkeepers watch.

A soldier wearing a black baclava guards the settlers, some of whom are heavily armed as well.

Some of the settlers get very annoyed by the fact people take photos of them and the soldiers who take them on a tour of the market whose inhabitants live under occupation and whose business suffers from it.

  

Automatic weapon and sound grenade ready, a Border Police officer waits for the tour to continue.

The soldier on the right threatened me and another activist with arrest a few days ago after we tried going into our former apartment in Tel Rumeida. 

A display of force.

The soldier on the right kept taking photos of us. His friend on the left kept for some reason telling me he is not afraid of me.

The Palestinian man in the purple shirt tried engaging the soldiers in friendly conversation.

Amazingly, a Border Police officer then threatened him for talking to his men. I have no idea what kind of reprimand the soldier received for behaving in a friendly fashion towards Palestinians. 

A small girl films the scene in her street. This is the world she is growing up in.

Our good friend Laila with her granddaughter.

A female soldier speaks with her colleagues. They should be be studying or working or doing other productive things rather than enforcing an illegal occupation. Unfortunately, the laws of their own government would punish them for doing so, and punish those Israelis who decide to not join the armed forces. 

The Border Police officer is equipped with "foam" bullets. In spite of their harmless name, they maim and disable and kill.

More photos.

Palestinian children wait for permission to pass.

Near the end of the tour, a group of boys began chasing the departing soldiers, yelling at them. The door slammed shut in their faces. One threw a rock at the closed metal door. Then they all took off running.

Automatic weapon slung across his arm, an Israeli settler and his kids go for a walk. In very different ways, both Palestinian and Israeli children in Hebron are robbed of their childhoods.

Some few minutes after the tour ended, there was a commotion at the checkpoint after a young Palestinian woman who "looked suspicious" was taken to be searched behind a wall. She left looking angry and humiliated.