Hassan was walking in the front with the donkey and suddenly stiffened, looked straight for quite a while, then slowly turned around and said in a sad and slow voice: “We have no trees anymore. They have cut the rest. We can return home.”

We were shocked and walked into the fields, Hassan remained where he stood and stared into nowhere. There was a lot of brushwood and brambles, uprooted trees, some of them burnt. When we walked up towards the fence a security guard showed up immediately and the nineteen year old Aischa*, the eldest daughter, got frightened, that her father would be shot. Her mother a strong woman, stated: “This is our land, so we can be here. I don´t care about him. This guard has nothing to say here.”

Karin went with Suha through the thorns to some single little trees which were left and could gather a handful of olives. There were only one to ten olives on each tree. For Suha it was clear: “The trees are sad. They don´t want to carry fruit anymore under these circumstances. Also the soil couldn´t be ploughed and that’s very bad for the trees. But we were afraid coming here. The life of my husband is more important than the trees.”

In the meanwhile Aischa went with Kate and Megumi to the fence of the settlement, which was built on land from Deir Istia, Hares and Qarawat.