CPTnet
1 June 2005
HEBRON UPDATE: 19-25 May 2005
Thursday 19
May CPTers John Lynes, Rusty Dinkins-Curling, Grace Pleiman, and
Donna Hicks attempted to get to Qurtuba School for morning school patrol.
The CPTers had gotten to the Old City end of the Israeli settlement Beit
Hadassah on Shuhada Street, when a male Israeli settler standing in the
street walked towards Lynes, yelling. He shoved Lynes back. An Israeli
soldier intervened and asked the CPTers to move off. A military jeep pulled
up, and the soldiers got in between the CPTers and the settlers who had
gathered. The soldier apologized for the settler's behavior, and said the
CPTers should go back. The four went to Bab iZaweyya, a market area, to go
through the Duboyya Street checkpoint, to approach the school from the
opposite direction. The soldier said they could not pass, and that he did
not know why.
Saturday 21 May
Palestinian families, CPT, and other internationals
organized a day of action to bring Israeli peace activists to Hebron to meet
with Palestinian families under attack from Israeli settlers in the Tel
Rumeida area of Hebron. (See 23 May release "Thirty two Israeli peace
activists arrested while attempting to visit Palestinians on Tel Rumeida.")
Lynes and Hicks walked to Tel Rumeida through the Qarantina neighborhood,
arriving at Hani Abu Haikel's house around 2:00 p.m. Al Jazeera TV arrived
shortly thereafter and interviewed the family. Dianne Roe, Jerry Levin, and
a friend arrived with Abu Haikel an hour or so later, followed by other
internationals. Hicks learned that three Swedish journalists were waiting
at the Gutnick Center, below the Ibrahimi Mosque, but they were unable to
make their way through the Israeli military checkpoints to get to Tel
Rumeida. Meanwhile Israeli soldiers were at the Abu Haikel house ordering
Al Jazeera and the other internationals to leave. Abu Haikel explained that
they were guests of the family. After a long conversation with the
soldiers, the Al Jazeera team left. The soldiers again asked Abu Haikel to
make the internationals leave. Abu Haikel responded, "I invited them to my
house. This house is a house where everyone is welcome. I also invited
Israelis but they were not allowed to pass. I also invite you to join us in
drinking juice. I will not ask my guests to leave."
After the Israeli patrol had moved on, Israeli settlers at the Tel Rumeida
settlement enclave, and those squatting in the Bakri house next to the
settlement and the Abu Haikel house attacked the Abu Haikel house by
throwing stones, small rocks, and glass bottles at the windows on the ground
floor and at the porch. Settler boys unbolted the Abu Haikel front gate,
which can be bolted only on the outside, and came into the yard throwing
more stones. Many fell on the metal roof of the porch. Abu Haikel's
children were outside and then ran into a room on the ground floor. As
settlers threw stones at the windows, which broke the glass, the children
cried out for their father. He went outside to get them and take them to
the upper level of the house. Israeli soldiers, on duty and off, came into
the Abu Haikel yard, and after much vigorous discussion with him and other
bystanders, detained him. The settlers cheered. He was released, and told
the team on his return that the soldiers had blindfolded him and handcuffed
him with his hands behind his back. A soldier told him that they had to
detain him because of the settlers, and that he knew Abu Haikel was not a
violent man. Meanwhile, a group of forty-two Israelis and several
internationals arrived in Halhoul at 3:00 p.m. by traveling in Palestinian
taxis and taking back roads to get around Israeli military roadblocks.
CPTers Luna Villota, Bill Baldwin, Dinkins-Curling, and CPT intern Chelli
Stanley accompanied the group into Hebron. Some of the group went to Bab
iZaweyya where Israeli military detained the Israelis. Others went to a side
road where the CPTers and twelve Israelis got out of the taxis to walk. In
a few minutes Israeli soldiers appeared at the end of the street, heading
towards the Israelis. Two were caught and detained by the soldiers as the
group moved up a side street and up the hill towards Tel Rumeida. Local
Palestinians took the rest of the group another way to avoid the Israeli
military.
The group met with two families who told how Israeli settlers have stoned
their homes and family members. One recounted that settlers had destroyed
the gate to his home within the last week and that Israeli soldiers have
beaten him five times, one beating requiring hospitalization.
In early evening, some of the internationals returned to the Old City
through the Qarantina neighborhood. As the group walked down the street
across from the Israeli settlement of Avraham Avinu, and the Israeli
military checkpoint at the foot of the street at the Ibrahimi Mosque,
Israeli settler boys pelted them with small stones. When the border police
at the checkpoint responded, the settler boys ran into the garden at the
Gutnick Center, the settlers' visitors' center near the Ibrahimi Mosque. A
border police officer at the mosque gate told Hicks and two internationals
that the police had no trouble from the Palestinian children, that it was
the settler children who were bad. The others left the area around the same
time.
CPTers Kathie Uhler, Dinkins-Curling, and two Palestinian colleagues went to
Kiryat Arba Police Station to retrieve an Israeli detainee's car keys so he
could drive the car from Bab iZaweyya to the police station. At the Israeli
entrance to Kiryat Arba, security stopped the group from entering and
parking the car for the detainee. As they were waiting, the Israelis who
had been detained walked out. Kiryat Arba security blocked the Israelis from
driving through the settlement to return to Jerusalem. After about
half-an-hour, an Israeli military jeep drove up and the personnel inside
gave the Israelis permission to enter the settlement. The others returned to
Hebron.
Monday 23 May
In the afternoon Levin attempted to lead visitors from the
United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia to Tel Rumeida. They had
entered Shuhada Street from the Ibrahimi Mosque special security zone and
walked up the street without challenge until just after they passed the Beit
Romano checkpoint. Suddenly a group of about thirteen young adolescent and
pre-adolescent settler children came swooping down from the Israeli
settlement of Beit Hadassah, yelling and snarling at the group to leave.
They began stoning the group at close range. Some of the children threw
rocks the size of tennis balls, hitting Levin on the hand, and his wife, Sis
Levin on the hand, bruising both slightly. An Israeli soldier came rushing
from the outpost entrance to see what the noise was all about as Levin tried
to move the group out of range of the rocks. The soldier chased the
children away.
Tuesday 24 May
Stanley, Dinkins-Curling, Lynes, and Baldwin visited Tel Rumeida in the
evening. They were joined by a Palestinian friend whom soldiers denied entry
at the check point. The CPTers pointed out that they were allowed to pass
although they did not live on Tel Rumeida. The Palestinian who lives in Tel
Rumeida could not pass. The soldier complained that he has to follow orders
without question and then has to put up with CPTers hassling him. Another
soldier reminded the Palestinian in Hebrew that they would meet again. "Next
time," he said, "you will be alone."
Dinkins-Curling, Lynes, and Baldwin visited another family. They talked
about the common values of Christianity and Islam and common hopes for
peace. The Palestinian told of how he asked his Jewish neighbor how they
could live together in peace. The neighbor replied the only way they could
live in peace would be for the Palestinian to move to Jordan or Egypt or
Iraq. The CPTers also met a boy injured in an attack by an Israeli settler
woman who pushed a stone into his mouth and broke some of his teeth.
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