CPTnet
4 February 2005
AT-TUWANI: Settler attacks shepherd, threatens
volunteers; police not interested
by Barbara Martens
"It would be good if you could come," the Operation
Dove (OD) volunteer told us. My teammate Kathy
Kapenga and I had just arrived on 25 January for our
shift at At-Tuwani, a small village in the South
Hebron Hills. We called OD, an organization with whom
we have been working in the area.
The OD volunteer we phoned was with some shepherds on
the neighboring hillside. His two co-workers were
filing charges at the police station in the Israeli
settlement of Kiryat Arba. When we arrived on the
hillside, shepherds joined us, guiding their sheep to
the top of the hillside. They had, perhaps, twenty to
forty sheep per flock. The shepherds told us that one
of their colleagues had just been attacked by a
settler youth and had fled, driving his sheep ahead of
him in order to escape.
Shepherds know the consequences of a confrontation
with a settler. Settlers have injured and killed
sheep in the area. Pregnant ewes are at risk from the
stress of running to escape. 25 January, the
shepherds' colleague escaped with a sprained ankle and
our two OD colleagues escaped under a death threat from a settler youth.
The settler youth who chased the shepherd had managed
to bypass our three Operation Dove team members. Two
team members chased the settler, videotaping the
attack. The settler, realizing his actions were being
documented, turned angrily on the two women. He
picked up a large rock and, holding it within two
centimeters of the side of our teammate's forehead,
warned, "When I come back in five minutes I'll kill
you!" He then continued his pursuit of the shepherd.
Justice in Palestine operates by two standards. At
the police station, the line of response to the death
threat went like this: "Did you say there was only ONE
youth? Did he take his gun (they are all allowed to
be armed) and point it at you? No? He only held up a
stone? Did he strike you with it? No? Well then, you
weren't really hurt, were you? He's just a youngster.
He probably meant no harm."
We know of Palestinian youth who have been beaten and
thrown into jail for throwing a stone at a settler,
let alone uttering a death threat.
[People may request a 31 January release about this
incident--"Threats of death in Hebron area (West Bank)
for two volunteers of Operation Dove"--from
operazionecolomba@apg23.org.]
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