CPTnet
13 December 2005
HEBRON UPDATE: 16-23 November 2005
Team members working in Hebron during this period were Kristin Anderson,
Mike Brown, Elizabeth Garcia, Maureen Jack, Diane Janzen, Mary Lawrence,
John Lynes, Cathy McLean, Rich Meyer, Anne Montgomery and Kathie Uhler.
REGULAR EVENTS
During this period all members took part in school patrols. Israeli
military intransigence at school checkpoints provoked spontaneous
resistance--most of it nonviolent.
A group of university students, men and women, continues to attend weekly
seminars on nonviolence at the Al-Watan Centre in Hebron, run by Nayef
Hashlamoun. They have adopted the name "Movement for Solidarity and Civil
Rights." CPT has participated in teaching the seminars.
Wednesday 16 November
A new Israeli military contingent arrived and was stationed at the
metal-detector "cabins." They set out to enforce their instructions to the
letter, rejecting the previous arrangements that allowed teachers and
school-children to bypass the metal detectors for the past six weeks. The
women teachers refused to go through the cabin by the Ibrahimi School.
Children also refused, and a crowd of a hundred collected at the barrier.
To compound the confusion a noisy military "exercise" took place nearby. A
rowdy confrontation ensued by the cabin. Eventually the military allowed
the children to filter, one by one, round the corner of the cabin.
Maureen Jack and Anne Montgomery walked up Worshippers' Way. The green
tarpaulin structure erected by settlers was still in place, but someone had
removed the tarpaulin from the Palestinian building.
Israeli soldiers prevented Rich Meyer and Jack from approaching the Abu
Haikel house in Tel Rumeida through the garden. A Palestinian boy showed
them a detour, which involved climbing over a wall. The family had had no
trouble lately from Israeli settlers who had occupied the empty Bakri house.
They were grateful to CPT for helping to pick their olives.
Thursday 17 November
The military allowed both teachers and children to go to school without
passing through the cabin by the Ibrahimi School.
Mary Lawrence and Meyer visited the Arab Evangelical School, formerly run by
Mennonites. The school now has 350 pupils, all but four of whom are
Muslims.
Kathie Uhler met Brother Daniel Casey, president of Bethlehem University,
and some of his colleagues. The institution was the Palestinians' first
university, established in 1974.
Saturday 19 November
After a prolonged confrontation, the military permitted the girls and the
women teachers to bypass the Ibrahimi cabin, fifteen minutes late for
school.
Mike Brown, Elizabeth Garcia and Meyer visited a Palestinian family in the
Baqa'a valley. Although the Israeli army had confiscated some of their land
for an Army post and for the nearby Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, the
father insisted that he wants peace and prays for it daily.
Sunday 20 November
Children and teachers again refused to pass through the Ibrahimi cabin. At
8:00 a.m. the soldiers allowed girls to bypass the cabin but insisted on
examining their school bags, often with a hand-held metal detector "wand."
Once the girls had passed, the boys were checked in turn, rather more
thoroughly. Soldiers cleared all of them by 8:30.
In the afternoon, Rich Meyer and John Lynes stood with a daughter of the
headmistress of the Qurtuba Girls' School. Israeli soldiers objected to her
key-ring tag, which showed a map of Israel/Palestine beneath a Palestinian
flag and detained her for forty minutes.
Monday 21 November
Once again, students and teachers refused to enter the Ibrahimi cabin. At
7:30 the military permitted them to filter past instead. Then, at 7:40 the
military stopped everybody from passing. Finally at 8:17 soldiers allowed
the remaining boys to pass, either around the cabin or through the
non-detector doors.
Tuesday 22 November
The confrontation at the Ibrahimi cabin escalated. About a hundred children
chanted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") and repeatedly succeeded in toppling
the plastic barriers. Some threw stones. Others, perhaps egged on by the
presence of a television crew and eight press photographers, scuffled with
the soldiers who responded with reasonable patience. Just after 8:20
soldiers fired a tear-gas canister and a stun grenade into the crowd of
children.
School was cancelled for that day.
In the afternoon Jack took members and friends of Operation Dove along
Worshippers' Way. The green tarpaulin structure had been re-erected.
Wednesday 23 November
Confrontation continued at the Ibrahimi cabin. Some girls brought placards
in English and Arabic. The English one said, "It's our right to learn and
reach our schools." At 8:50 the women teachers "set up school" on the steps
of buildings along the Yatta road leading to the cabin. The Palestinians
dispersed at 9:30.
At noon Jack and Montgomery did school patrol at Qurtuba Girls' School. As
the teachers and girls made their way down the steps from the school, some
visiting "Women in Green" (an Israeli pro-settler group) shoved into the
group, aggressively taking photographs right in the faces of the girls.
Jack and Montgomery joined hands, standing at the foot of the steps between
the Israelis and the frightened school-girls. (See 24 November CPTnet
release, "On hatred.")
That evening Meyer met Palestinian shopkeepers who had just been served with
military closure orders stating that until 5 May 2006 all shops on the
following streets were to stay closed. The streets would also be closed to
Palestinian traffic:
1. The loop from the Jewish steps to the Ibrahimi mosque/Cave of Macpelah,
east and south to the Al Feyhaa Girls' School
2. The stretch of Al-Sahle Street from Al-Hizpe to the Ibrahimi
mosque/Cave of Macpelah checkpoint.
The stretch of shops facing the Gutnick Centre (beside the Ibrahimi
Mosque/Cave of Macpelah) will remain open.
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