CPTnet
5 June 2006
AT-TUWANI: Demolitions and orders of demolitions
On 30 May, CPTers Diana Zimmerman, Heidi Schramm and a member of Operation
Dove observed a large Israeli military and police presence in and around the
outpost directly south of Ma'on settlement. Different sources have called
this outpost Hill 833, Havot Ma'on or Ma'on Farm (other outposts in the area
that the Israeli government demolished or partially evacuated in the 1990's
carried some of these names.) The next day, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz
reported that the Israeli civil administration delivered demolition orders
to eighteen buildings in the Ma'on Farm outpost. Israeli Defense Minister
Amir Peretz has said that this outpost is being evacuated because of the
attacks by the outpost settlers on the Palestinian school children from the
villages of Tuba and Migael Abed as they pass the outpost on their way to
and from school in At Tuwani.
On 31 May, the Israeli military demolished one Palestinian house and five
toilet facilities in villages south and east of At-Tuwani. Zimmerman and a
Dove were unable to reach the home in the village of Khalet alThaba before
the demolition. They were able to videotape, from a distance, the five
minutes it took the military bulldozer to demolish the house. Zimmerman and
the Dove visited the family later in the day to document the demolition.
The family told them that twelve family members, nine of them children,
lived in the house that they had built from rocks, with a tarp roof. The
family also said that the military had not delivered a demolition order for
the house and that the family had no warning that the demolition was going
to happen. The soldiers gave them no time to remove their belongings from
the house before the demolition started.
On 1 June, CPTer Diane Janzen and a Dove walked to the village of Migael
Abed to gather information about two of the demolished toilets. A Hebron
NGO built the toilets almost four years ago with funding from Economic
Resource Management (ERM, a British NGO). The owner of one of the toilets
reported that he had received a demolition order for his toilet a year ago,
as had the owners of the other toilets in Migael Abed. However two weeks
ago the other owners received another demolition order, but he had not. He
told the internationals how he had tried to speak with the soldiers to try
to prevent the demolitions. He told the soldiers that it was shameful to go
to the bathroom and to wash oneself in the open where other people might see
you. A soldier replied that it was not shameful and that the family "should
move to Yatta with the other Muslims." The Palestinian man told the
internationals, "they [the Israeli government] are trying to make life too
difficult for us to continue living here so that we will leave."
Photos of the demolitions are available at:
http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=may06_demolitions
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