Thousands of people participated in a march on Wednesday to six different locations in Judea and Samaria, with the intention of founding new communities in unsettled areas. Among them was Naama Ariel, who set out with her three young children.
Following the events, Ariel described what happened on her Facebook page.
"I left home a little late, with my three children, and a journey that should have taken half an hour instead took over an hour," she wrote. "We got stuck in a massive traffic jam due to the police roadblocks that had been erected, for no real reason other than to annoy residents of Samaria on their way home from work. Why did they let me pass, for instance? After all, I was on my way to the settlements."
She continued, "We sat in the car, determined to get there. I approached the Eli Zahav junction and realized that this was the right place. I decided to leave the car at the side of the road with the lights flashing, and walk the rest of the way."
Naama and her children got out of the car and headed off by foot to the nearby olive grove. "I heard a police car approaching my own vehicle," she described. "They called out to me that, 'We want to give you a parking ticket.' I said, 'Okay, so give me one.' I wasn't about to get all confused and cancel all my plans when this was something so important that I'd decided to do."
Ariel then explained why she opted for a parking ticket rather than moving her car. "My kids had been waiting for and looking forward to this day. I had the opportunity to instill love and determination for the Land of Israel. Our connection to the Land is not just theoretical. It's practical, and sometimes, we pay a price for it. I did get a bit overwhelmed, seeing all the police cars and police officers there, but we kept walking, and within a few minutes we reached the right place where everyone was gathering."
As confirmed by other accounts, there was a huge number of people there. "There was a huge crowd, families, teens, everyone busy preparing the ground to set up tents. All the time I was thinking about what this was going to cost me, and I resolved that I would pay the price for something I had chosen to do.
"The energy and the sheer joy there were incredibly special, unique," she continued. "It brought me back to life, reminded me that we have an essence, we have values.
"We hadn't planned to sleep there," Naama added, "and after meeting up with cousins, it was around nine o'clock in the evening and we started on our way back. Then I found the parking ticket that I was about to pay with joy (and it was much less than I had imagined). How much do concert tickets cost for a mother and three children? So, that was the 'performance' I went to see. Fine."
Highlighting the double standards of the government, Naama described how, "People who travel along these roads every day are attacked by lawbreakers who try to cause road accidents. Some of them are driving cars that don't comply with safety standards; some of them don't even have drivers' licenses. Arabs. But the police are nowhere to be found."
In conclusion, Naama wrote of her hope and prayer that "all the energies of the police should be diverted back to saving lives and solving the very serious problems we have on the roads, every single day. From the sheer number of police I saw there last night, it's clear that we have the numbers to address problems like rock-throwing.
"And what happened last night is just for starters. We'll be back, again and again, and we will inherit the Land."