Alon Shvut Settlement, WEST BANK — Galit Cohen keeps one eye on the road and the other on a pan of potatoes she has made for her family's Sabbath meal.
The mother of four didn't want to be out on this highway, and approaching cars that veer too close to the small bus stop that doubles as a hitchhiking stand make her jump back. But within the West Bank's hilly terrain, there are few roads that count as highways, and those few are shared by both Palestinian and Israeli nationals waiting to catch a ride.
"It's very scary, anyone can be a terrorist," said Cohen, 41, who was waiting with her children for an armored bus to take them to the nearby settlement of Kiriyat Arba near Hebron. "We aren't hitchhiking ourselves, but we are standing next to all these kids who...well, only god knows whose car they are getting into. A month ago my kids would have been there next to them, but now I don't allow it."
Near where they stand, strands of police tape and smashed concrete mark the spot where 26-year-old Dalia Lamkus, from the settlement of Tekoa, was run over and then stabbed last week. Across the street, a poster and burnt-out candle have been placed in remembrance on the spot where three teenage Israeli boys were kidnapped in the summer, their bodies found 18 days later in a shallow grave a few miles away. The kidnappings were the first in a chain of events that led to the arrests of hundreds of Palestinians across the West Bank, and eventually a war that raged between Israel and Gaza for 50 days.
It's no coincidence, say residents of the nearby settlement, that the two events happened at this particular spot. The junction where the settlement of Alon Shvut meets the main highway winding its way across the West Bank is a good access point if someone is trying to hitch a ride west, toward the coastal city of Tel Aviv, or east, toward Jerusalem. It's an access point shared by Palestinians and Israelis, who, despite the crowded politics of the West Bank, are forced to share these roads.
Less than 20 feet can sometimes separate the outer limits of a Jewish settlement from the nearest Palestinian village. Despite the walls and checkpoints that have been erected in recent years, the roads connect the residents of the West Bank to many of the same petrol stations, grocery chains. and highway junctions, a stark reminder of the cheek-by-jowl nature of Israeli and Palestinian lives.
"This used to be the most popular place for hitchhiking. On a Friday you could barely move on the sidewalk, there were so many of them crowding the street," said Lt. Michal, an IDF platoon commander who has been based in this part of the West Bank of seven years. He asked to be quoted only by his first name, due to the IDF restrictions that require pre-authorization for active soldiers to speak to journalists. "Hitchhiking is part of the culture here, part of the settlers' national identity."
But over the last few weeks, people have started to stay away. The fear of this spot began this summer, when Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel, and Eyal Yifrach were kidnapped while they stood alongside dozens of others trying to hitch a ride, and spread last week when a Palestinian motorist rammed his car into the small bus stop here, running over three people. He then stopped his car, exited, and stabbed Dalia Lamkus to death.
"All of those horrible things happened right here," said Etty Shuval, a 26-year-old teacher from the Alon Shvut settlement. On Friday, she was one of just a handful of hitchhikers still trying to catch a lift from the junction. "I don't want to let it affect me, but if I'm honest, I'm scared. I thought twice about coming out here, but in the end decided that it's in god's hands."
As she spoke, Lt. Michal walked up and asked her to take a step behind the newly erected concrete barrier. The knee-high slabs of concrete would stop a car from careening onto the sidewalk, he said, though Shuval didn't seem convinced.
"If these things are all we have to protect us, then I place my fate in the hands of god," said Shuval.
Lt. Michal shrugged, and walked back to his guard post.
Cohen, meanwhile, said that she had stopped letting her four children try and hitchhike, especially at night or outside the settlement walls.
"We try to minimize the danger, but you can't really tell a kid not to hitchhike at all — especially when there is not other way for them to get around," said Cohen.
She said that while the settlement council has tried to arrange rideshare programs and to pressure Israel's national bus lines to run more frequently in the West Bank, hitchhiking is still the fastest way to get around.
Lt. Michal said that while he noticed fewer Jewish settlers on the road, he saw virtually no Palestinians trying to catch a lift. "They used to stand there, just 10 feet away from where everyone else stood. They stood separately," he said.
The Assad family was one of those who used to frequently try to catch a lift from the junction. Their ancestral home is only 20 feet down from the highway, and within eyesight of where the attacks have happened.
"We will maybe avoid the place for the time being, but we have been through these cycles before," said Sayed Assad. He said that while they have no problems with the settlement directly opposite their home, he's worried about outsiders looking to take revenge against Palestinians for the recent string of attacks.
"People now are angry, it's a bad time," he said. "So maybe they won't come here — for a while they'll go down the road."
Just a few miles down the road, dozens of people crowded the sidewalks looking for buses or trying to hitch rides.
Yosef Shimon, 17, a resident of the nearby settlement of Bat Ayin who sells flowers here on Fridays, said there were still far fewer people here than on an average Friday.
"People get rides from inside the settlements, or they call people they know to come get them, they avoid standing around," said Shimon.
But when asked if he was worried about spending hours of his day standing on the side of a major intersection, he just shook his head.
"I believe that if god wants me to go, if its my time, I'll go. If not he'll protect me," said Shimon. "And also, I carry pepper spray now."