At Esh-Kodesh and Adei-Ad

This past Friday, I had occasion to visit two outpost communities in the Shiloh Bloc with a diplomat interest in seeing things "on the ground".

Among other sites, we were at Esh Kodesh, establish in 1999 and now with 26 families.  In the two pictures below, you can see, on the one hand, desolation from the previous decades and more, and on the other, two vineyards begun recently on the slopes of a hill that separates Esh-Kodesh from Kutsra.  Jewish development.

The first picture is further to the northeast from where we were standing at the community's synagogue:

and the second, is further to the west and you can also see older agricultural efforts in the wadi at the bottom which now, I heard, is recently the subject of a claim by a resident of another Arab village, Jaloud:

The next two pictures are of the olive tree orchard of Moshe Tamir, damaged last week, probably during Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah:-

You can see branches broken, etc.

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