ciao a tutti.

I don't really know what news do you get there and thought I'd send you a brief update even though I'm not in the mood for writing to friends. The last two days have been very though and I'm emotionally exhausted. I feel extremely frustated and angry, I feel like smashing everything around me and I know this wouldn't help either, but things just build up and I'm find myself here witnessing continuous and deliberate violence and viciousness and I can just aknowledge, look around helpless, and I can't see any way out, it all seems to just get worse every day, every hour, and it's hard to try and keep hoping. The situation is very bad. As you will know in the last week or so the israelis have killed eight palestinians so breaking the agreement for a ceasefire. Four of them were Hamas militants in Nablus. The response has been immediate, two suicide bombers - one in Tel Aviv and one in Ariel settlement and a shooting to an Israelis bus in Jerusalem. The day after the suicide bombers' house demolitions. I've spent the last two days in Hebron.

Travelling is a nightmare, the Israelis security is very tight at the moment, and soldiers and police are just a part of the landscape. Curfew was imposed again in the old city in Hebron on Wednesday. At night I could hear bombing and shooting, there have been extensive home searches in the old city, and the atmosphere was very tense. On Thursday morning I went to the Polytechnic University. The situation is that the University and The Polytechnic in Hebron have been closed for "security reasons" since January, initially for six months then extended for one month every time the deadline approached. Students have had lectures in local schools, they can't use laboratories and libraries and have only evening lectures, which makes it very difficult especially for women and people living in the villages. Graduation ceremonies have been blocked for three years now, and the first one was finally expected last monday, but cancelled at the last minute. This policy of continuously delaying is extremely distressing, is just a cruel joke, and made students really frustrated. Three days ago they occupied the Polytechnic, yet the administrative and academic staff do not back them as they are afraid of the Israeli reaction. We spoke to the students and they were planning to occupy another building soon. While this was happening news arrived of the IDF having killed a very popular student and militant of Al Jiad. It's impossible to describe how things went in the following hours. People went mad, fighting talks started and it was just too emotional, and a very symbolic song was played incessantly at such a loud volume that I thought I was going to go mad myself. I eventually left and everyone else did the same in the following two hours. I then went to the old city despite it was curfew. It was a terrible feeling. A dead town, devastation everywhere, an unbearable silence only broken by the children running furiosly up and down in the narrow streets. Children struck me more than anything else, in most cases they are screwed and I feel fucking bad looking at them: will they ever have a chance of a normal life, will they never have a future? We went to an office of a peace organisation to rest a bit a drink some water. The soldiers eventually knocked at the door and told the people there that they knew we were there and we were not supposed to. The only chance we were kindly offered was to be immediatly escorted out by them. I just felt like shit. There is no chance but to obey and swallow all your anger and frustration.

I left Hebron today. I am in Jerusalem now, having a 24 hour break and on the move to Nablus tomorrow.

I'm ok, and despite the tough moments I do not repent to be here at all. Hope you are all well, and will write to you again. Un abbraccio collettivo

fede