“Their independence is our Nakba,” proclaimed a banner seen by a Hebron CPTer on a day off in Bethlehem.  What Israel considers the beginning of their state in 1948 was the “Great Catastrophe” for the Palestinians.  The Nakba was the loss of more than 400 villages to the invading Israeli armed militias.  Palestinians fled to other parts of Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.  More than 750,000 lost their homes, set up camps, and waited for the day when under international law they would return to their homes.

The organization Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast of Antioquia (CAHUCOPANA) organized a demonstration for the International Workers' Day, 1 May, 2011 in Segovia, Antioquia. Founded in 2004, CAHUCOPANA is an organization of small farmers. They recognize the need to unite to ensure the respect for their human rights.

CPT took part in the demonstration and is planning an international delegation with CAHUCOPANA 14-27 July, 2011. (For more information on the delegation contact delegations@cpt.org.)

During the speech at Segovia's central park, the police were filming the event from the police station's roof. CPT and IAP (International Action for Peace) shared their concerns with the officers, but the police kept on filming. 

On the same night, recognized paramilitaries entered the place where the demonstrators were sleeping, generating fear.

Read the main speech at the event...

At 4:30 p.m. on 27 May 2011, CPT received a call that settlers set fire to olive orchards on the Abu Haikel property in Tel Rumeida.  One of the Abu Haikel sons took the CPTers to the scene of the fire. As some of the trees were still smoldering, a Palestinian fireman from the Hebron Municipality continued to monitor the scene.  The fireman reported that soldiers had taken all of their new fire hoses and given them old hoses to use. Later, when the CPTers asked the soldiers to return the new equipment to the last remaining fireman, they did not respond.

At approximately 7:00 on 21 May 2011, CPTers heard an explosion and shortly afterwards received a call from a frantic shop owner who said a man had been hit near her shop.  When Esther Mae Hinshaw and Kathleen Kern arrived on the scene, they saw a man, semi-conscious, who had been hit in the head by a sound bomb (a grenade-like device used by the Israeli military for crowd control.  The sound it makes when detonated is so loud that people by instinct move away from the noise.)  As Kern followed calls urging her to come toward the entrance of the Old City, a sound bomb fell approximately six feet away from her, and closer to a young woman who became temporarily deaf and subsequently showed signs of shock.

When an Israeli soldier patrol came through shortly

On Monday, 23 May, Israeli intelligence entered At-Tuwani, escorted by about fifteen soldiers. In the operation the Israeli military invaded a local leader's house, demanded that villagers stop their nonviolent resistance, and threatened violent retaliation if the Palestinians persist asserting their rights to the land. 

Anti- corruption demonstrations continued: 

Protest leaders announced 1 April to be a “Day of Anger” at the protests. Two events precipitated this: first, the arrest of religious leader Mullah Kameron who had called from the stage for a peaceful jihad, the nonviolent struggle of truth and justice against corruption and injustice.  He asked for a nonviolent revolution. The authorities only heard the word jihad and twisted the rest of his words. Thus, they arrested him on an antiterrorism charge and refused to let two pro bono lawyers take on his case or visit him.  Second, was KRG President Barzani’s statement that all demonstrators and supporters must be prosecuted.  The demonstration leaders called for anger to be displayed with nonviolence and peaceful protest, but the security forces were summoned.  By the end of the evening, forty-four people were injured including some police hit by the rocks.

PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, May 25, 2011

Pray for the Ali Awwad family in the village of Tuba, Palestine. On May 16, seven masked Israeli settlers stole and injured several of the family's sheep, and damaged their water tanks and fences. Police failed to respond.

Doug Pritchard

Christian Peacemaker Teams

Toronto, Canada

"I felt responsible to go to the demonstrations after the violent response of the authorities to the protesters on 17 February," Mamosta Mullah Kameron Ali Khwarham told two members of CPT as they sat in his home in the village of Faraj Awa, just southeast of Suleimaniya in the Kurdish region of Iraq. “I wanted to let the protesters know that they are not alone, that some of the religious leaders are with them." 

Mullah Kameron was arrested twice after speaking out in the anti-corruption demonstrations in Suleimaniya that lasted 62 days, from 17 February to 18 April 2011.

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has released a video of Palestinian testimonies about the recent settler invasion of the village of Tuba. On 16 May, shortly before midnight, Israeli settlers invaded Tuba, damaged property, and stole and injured several sheep belonging to the Ali Awwad family. Click here for the CPTnet article posted 16 May. 

CORRECTION: The original CPTnet account of the incident erroneously indicated that two sheep had been killed by settlers. In fact, two of the sheep were so badly injured that the family had to slaughter them the next morning.

PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, May 18, 2011

Pray for Zoraida Hernandez, a lawyer working with small miners in South Bolivar, and with several national justice initiatives in Colombia. Last month two men entered her home and threatened her and her family.