CPTnet
11 December 2006
HEBRON UPDATE: 19 November -2 December 2006
On team during this period were Donna Hicks, Kathie Uhler, Jerry Levin, John
Lynes, Sally Britton and Laurie Hadden, and Cathy McLean.
Monday 20 November 2006
In the morning, John Lynes, Sally Britton, Laurie Hadden and his wife,
Marilyn, went to the farming village of Beit Ummar for a day of olive
picking. Neither the Israeli authorities nor Israeli setters interfered.
Tuesday 21 November 2006
In the morning, Hadden and Lynes led a tour group of German Mennonite Peace
Committee. When they attempted to walk to Tel Rumeida via Shuhada Street,
Israeli soldiers stopped them. Taking a longer, unpatrolled route, they
reached their destination.
Wednesday 22 November 2006
During morning school patrol, Donna Hicks, Jerry Levin, Kathie Uhler and
John Lynes encountered an Israeli army patrol stopping foot traffic in the
market. A soldier stopped two young schoolgirls and searched their
backpacks. At the Beit Romano checkpoint, they found a group of
Palestinians whom Israeli soldiers had prevented from entering the Old City.
Meanwhile Lynes and Hadden, also on school patrol, entered Shuhada Street
via Gates 4/5 and headed for the checkpoint across the street from the
Gutnick Center in the Ibrahimi Mosque security zone. Soldiers stopped them
at a guard post recently established midway between gates 4/5 and the
Gutnick Center checkpoint. The soldiers told them that if they wanted to
proceed they would have to retrace their steps, go back into the Old City
through Gates 4/5 and enter the mosque security zone via the Ibrahimi Mosque
gate. Lynes and Hadden elected to stay where they were and conduct their
surveillance of schoolchildren walking from that spot. Levin and Uhler
joined them at the end of patrol. Only then did the soldiers allow Hadden
and Lynes to head back to the CPT apartment along with Levin and Uhler via
the mosque security zone and the mosque gate.
Hicks took some visitors from Holy Land Trust, some of whom were
Palestinian, on a tour of the area. Soldiers would not allow the
Palestinians to walk on Shuhada Street.
Thursday 23 November 2006
The team went to Bethlehem for Thanksgiving dinner at Jerry and Sis Levin's
house. Britton, Hadden, Hicks, Lynes and McLean visited the Olivewood
Factory just below the Milk Grotto Church. One of the owners told them the
Israeli authorities have denied his family access to most of their olive
trees located on the other side of the wall separating Bethlehem from
Jerusalem. He said his family was able to harvest only enough olives to
produce about twenty liters of olive oil this year. In earlier years, they
were able to produce about 2000 liters each year. In the past, they could
sell the surplus. Now they have to buy olive oil when what they make for
their own use runs out.
Hicks, McLean, and Uhler spent the night in Bethlehem with a Palestinian
family that operates a hostel. They told the CPTers about the previous
Monday evening when the Israeli army invaded Bethlehem in pursuit of alleged
militants. Some soldiers forced their way into the house as two guests were
leaving. The soldiers began firing their guns from the house. The couple
said they spent most of the several hours the soldiers were firing from the
house under their beds. One of the sons showed the CPTers a plastic bag of
spent shells he picked up after the soldiers left.
Friday 24 November 2006
The Levins attended the latest session in the trial of nuclear whistle
blower Mordechai Vanunu. The Israeli government has accused him of
violating restrictions placed on him at the time of his release from prison
in 2004 that forbid him from giving interviews to foreign journalists. The
defense examined General Yair Neve, who signed the orders stipulating these
restrictions. In response to questioning by Vann's attorney, the general
confirmed that the order was based on information supplied by the Israeli
secret service, but that some of the information was so secret that he was
not allowed to see it. Then he revealed that he delegated the
responsibility and the authority to enforce the restrictions to the Israeli
police and secret service. The judge did not set a date for the next trial,
but said he hoped it could wrap up in January.
Saturday 25 November 2006
The latest CPT delegation arrived in Hebron for a four-day stay in the area.
Sunday 26 November 2006
The team lost telephone and internet service early in the day.
Monday 27 November 2006
At mid-morning, Sally Britton, and Kathie Uhler joined two women from
Machsoum (checkpoint or roadblock) Watch and a driver/translator to the home
of a farmer in the Baqa'a Valley on whose recently confiscated land the
Israeli authorities are building a new road. They also visited the home of
another Palestinian who told them the Israeli authorities had encircled his
land with a barbed wire fence and two roadblocks.
Telephone and internet service was still out all day. CPT learned that
other customers had heard that their service would be out for two or three
more days. Someone had allegedly cut a main cable.
Tuesday 28 November 2006
On morning school patrol, Jerry Levin and John Lynes found a Palestinian man
whom Border Policemen were detaining at the checkpoint across the street
from the Gutnick Center. When they returned about thirty minutes later the
Palestinian, along with four others, was still there. Levin asked the two
Border policemen on duty why they were holding the young man so long. One
of the soldiers sneered and said, "I don't speak English." Levin said,
"You're speaking English now, and very good English. So tell me, why are
you holding him so long?" The soldier shrugged. Lynes called out,
"Congratulations on your English." Then right after the soldiers heard
Levin calling TIPH (Temporary International Presence Hebron), the soldiers
suddenly handed out the ID cards of all the detainees.
John Lynes attended a meeting with two representatives of the PLO's
negotiating unit at the Hebron Land Defense Committee office. Committee
members, along with representatives from local governmental units, spoke of
the inadequacy of PLO efforts to deal with effectively with the occupation,
i.e. and its advocacy work overseas and the effects of expanding Israeli
settlements. One of the PLO conferees acknowledged that the complaints were
largely justified and that the gap between the Land Defense Committees and
the PLO must be bridged. Another PLO conferee encouraged CPT to report any
significant changes in the Hebron area and gave team members her telephone
numbers and e-mail.
In the early afternoon, Levin led four visitors down Shuhada Street along
which the four small Old City Israeli settlements are located near the
Dubboya Street checkpoint. When they reached Gross Square, an Israeli army
sentry stopped them and wanted to know if they were a "tour group." The
visitors said, "yes." Then the soldier noticed Levin's CPT cap and said,
"Wait a minute. You are CPT?" When Levin answered in the affirmative, the
soldier said that he must call his commander. After calling, the soldier
said to Levin, "You are not authorized to be in this street." Levin said
that he and his friends needed no authorization, but the soldier repeated
that his commander said that they could not be there. Levin complained, "You
know that's not true. Some days your commander says, 'yes' Some days you
say, 'yes.' Other days you say 'no' or your commander says 'no.' But you
both know we don't need authorization." The soldier then said, "Are you
Jewish?" Everyone answered, "no." The soldier said, "Only Jewish people
can walk on this street." One of the visitors, very annoyed, said, "This
street was built with American money for everyone to walk on." The soldier
said, "No it wasn't." Levin said, "Yes, it was. It was built ten years ago
with USAID money for everyone to walk." The soldier answered, "I don't know
about that. But I do know that only Jews are authorized to walk on this
street. You must go back." The group had to turn back.
Telephone and internet service were still out. The phone company sent a
message saying that a main cable with more than two hundred lines had been
cut and would not be fixed until Saturday.
Wednesday 29 November 2006
Levin and Uhler led six members of the CPT delegation entered Shuhada Street
through Gates 4/5 in order to conduct morning school patrol. Once the group
was through, soldiers at the new sentry post between Gate 4/5 and the
checkpoint across from the Gutnick Center, told Levin and Lynes that CPT
could no longer use Gate 4/5.
Around noon, Atta Jabber called to report that at about 11:30, an Israeli
Caterpillar bulldozer, escorted by about fifty-sixty soldiers, came to the
two-room house that his cousin Faraz Jaber had been building. In nine
minutes, the house was demolished. While that was happening, Atta Jaber
said that about thirty members of three other families living close by were
ordered to stay in their houses until the Israeli authorities completed the
destruction. CPT also received reports of a house Ishaq Irsaieh was
building near the junction of Highway 60 and the Yatta Road also being
demolished.
Thursday November 30, 2006
CPT Hebron went to At-Tuwani for an all-CPT Palestine team meeting.
Friday 1 December 2006
Shortly before noon, Lynes and McLean went to the Ibrahimi Mosque turnstiles
and the area beside the Gutnick center. Soldiers had killed a Palestinian
man from the Wadi Nasara area who had allegedly attacked a soldier with a
homemade gasoline bomb. They wanted to be on hand in case there was any
tension in the area because of the killing. Extra soldiers were in the area
and checked many IDs. No confrontations occurred. Levin joined the CPTers,
and the three attempted to go back to the CPT apartment through Gates 4/5
but sentries turned them back. One said it was because of the shooting.
Saturday, Dec. 2, 2006
During early morning school patrol, McLean and Lynes stationed themselves in
the area between Gates 4/5 and the outpost near the Gutnick Center. McLean
noticed a group of about 8 to 10 young pre-teen age Israeli settler boys
bearing down on a lone Palestinian youth trying to walk to school. The
settler boys began taunting him and then, surrounding him, began pelting him
with stones. McLean attempted to get between the settler boys and the
Palestinian but before she could, one raging settler boy tried to knock the
Palestinian boy to the ground by kicking him. When McLean did get between
them, the Palestinian boy dashed to where Israeli soldiers were standing.
The soldiers tried to stop the settler boys but by then, the Palestinian boy
had grabbed a stone and thrown it at them. After that, stones began
flying. McLean ducked and at the same time asked a gathering crowd of young
Palestinians to go on to school rather than join in the stone throwing,
which they started to do. Then, a Palestinian girl coming from another
direction was stoned by one of the settler boys. She ran to avoid being
hit. She then requested that the gathering crowd go to school to reduce the
violence. They left and things settled down until a young female
Palestinian came from the opposite direction. The settler boys' ringleader
then began throwing stones at her. McLean again intervened and the soldiers
forced the settler boys to be on their way. As they reluctantly cleared the
area, they waved their fists and shouted angrily at the soldiers.
Levin and Uhler joined McLean and Lynes and all four started to return to
the CPT apartment via gates 4/5. However, soldiers turned them back, and
they had to go to the apartment via the Ibrahimi Mosque gate.
Lynes, McLean and Uhler went to a Palestinian Youth Association (PYA)
exhibition in H1 (The Palestinian administered area of Hebron) to see craft
items displayed there by women from Dura and surrounding villages. The
organizers invited CPT, along with various NGOs and international
organizations serving in Hebron, to leave handout material explaining their
service to the community. CPT made available a brand new trifold brochure
in Arabic created especially for this opportunity to describe its work.
At the end of the day, telephone and internet service had not been restored.
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