CPTnet
12 September 2005
HEBRON: Internationals banned from streets in Tel Rumeida area; teachers
protest metal detector checkpoint.
by Christina Gibb
On 11 September, CPT's partner organizations involved with school patrols in
Hebron notified CPT's Hebron team about new restrictions at Tel Rumeida. The
Israeli army declared a closed military zone there from 8:00 a.m. 11
September until 6:00 p.m. 12 September. The military may decide to keep
the area closed indefinitely. Inside the zone, the military has banned all
internationals from being out on the streets. This includes members of the
Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme (EAPPI), the Tel Rumeida Project (TRP)
and International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who do school patrols to ensure
that the children of Qurtuba Girls' School get there and home safely. Last
week (in EAPPI's absence) CPT patrolled there too as it had before the other
organizations took that accompaniment over.
The school is on a steep hill between the Israeli settlements of Beit
Hadassah at the bottom and Tel Rumeida at the top. The Israeli army and
police have said they will ensure the children's safety, but are now
stopping the internationals from observing what is going on at the many
places on the hill where the girls are vulnerable to settler stone throwers
and other harassment.
TRP members who live in the closed zone are virtually under house arrest,
unable to go out even to buy food. EAPPI members, who live outside the
closed zone and who have escorted the children to school for the last two
years, had to stand at the checkpoint, unable to pass through.
Also on 11 September, Fariel Abu Haikal, the principal of Qurtuba School,
eleven of her teachers and thirteen girls protested the new metal detector
cabins at the checkpoint. The soldiers would allow pregnant women and girls
to pass round the side, but insisted that other adults must go through the
cabins. They refused to do so and those whom the soldiers would permit to go
around decided to stand in solidarity with those whom they would not.
ISM members, who share a house with TRP, sat on the Tel Rumeida side of the
checkpoint, ignoring the ban on their presence in the streets, and waiting
to escort any school staff or girls.
The army also kept Members of Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without
Borders) from entering the area.
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Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) seeks to enlist the whole church in
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