CPTnet
21 September 2007
HEBRON UPDATE: 25 August-6 September 2007
Team members in this period included: Christina Gibb, Maureen Jack, John
Lynes, Dianne Roe, Kathie Uhler, and Mary Wendeln and Valerie Joy and Mary
Rose, two guests from Australia and New Zealand.
Saturday 25 August
Dianne Roe delivered a letter from Tom Shea, who was on a CPT delegation in
1995, to Hani Abu Haikel at his shop. Abu Haikel was elated, saying, "When
someone who met you so long ago still remembers you, it gives you so much
hope. It is something amazing."
Kathie Uhler reported that in Beit Ummar soldiers searched the home of Jamal
Miqbel's grandmother, where she lives alone at night. The soldiers realized
they were in the wrong home but took pictures of each room anyway, upsetting
the old woman.
In the evening, Uhler and the Miqbel's attended a wedding party for one of
Jamal's brothers at the Miqbel extended family home in Beit Ummar. One
family member told Uhler that 300 Miqbels live in that home in a series of
apartments. Several other Miqbels came to the party from the nearby Al
Aroub Camp, where the family settled after the exodus in 1948 from what is
now Israel.
Sunday 26 August
Maureen Jack and John Lynes attended a meeting at the offices of the
Palestine Popular Organizing Committee about a proposed shopping action. A
few shopkeepers were present, as were representatives from ISM
(International Solidarity Movement), and a member of the Palestinian
Legislative Council. The group focused on the need for a strategic approach
to bringing more shoppers into the Old City. Suggestions included twinning
with cities overseas and the establishment of a Tourist Information Office
in the Old City.
Monday 27 August
Jack and Mary Wendeln left for a visit in Seir, a town with a population of
about 26,000.
The town's borders extend to the Dead Sea even though the inhabitants are
prevented form accessing part of the area. While riding there in a taxi, a
Palestinian man described the situation as being in a prison. He also said,
"No justice, no peace."
In Seir, their host, Jamal Shalaldah, with some of his children, greeted the
CPTers. He said, "Soldiers roam through the streets at night and attack the
villages. Sometimes when boys throw stones, the soldiers shoot at them."
Shalaldah and his uncle were arrested during the first Intifada. His uncle
still suffers the effects of the torture inflicted on him in prison.
Shalaldah talked about his 100 dunams of land, with olive trees. He cannot
go there alone because of harassment from the Israeli settlers of Efrata and
its outposts. He thinks that olive picking will begin in early November,
and that, if internationals come to pick the olives, the work could be done
in two or three days. Jack asked Shalaldah the consequences if no help came
to pick the olives. He said that it would not be a loss, since last year,
the settlers destroyed the olives and exploded a bomb in a well. Shalaldah
recalled, too, that a few years ago settlers (presumably) poisoned forty
lambs.
Abdulhadi Hantash from the Hebron Land Defense Committee visited the team.
He said that earlier in the year, Israel diverted most of the West Bank
water sources from the Bethlehem area to the Gush Etzion Israeli settlement
and then to Israel. That diversion has severely affected farm areas,
especially in the Beqa'a Valley, this summer.
Uhler visited the Al Mahawer Center, directed by Samih Da'na, in Jabel
Johar. The center offers a variety of programs to improve the psychosocial
and physical health of the children of the area. The center deploys medical
mobile units throughout the week as well. The center is the only one of its
kind, serving 48,000 people. Uhler enjoyed several psychodramas, performed
by boys and girls that involved their acting out nonviolent responses to
situations that they endure under the Israeli military occupation.
In the evening, CPTers and five internationals-- from Finland, Ireland,
Denmark, and the U.S.-- previewed and critiqued a photography exhibit of the
work of the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee in the Old City. The HRC paves
streets and rebuilds ancient homes in the Old City and is preparing to show
the exhibit as a fundraiser in Europe.
Tuesday 28 August
Roe and Wendeln visited the new public relations director at the
Municipality, Yihyeh Al Natsche, and his assistant Ikram Hamouna. Al
Natsche thanked CPT for their continuing presence. The Municipality hopes to
revive the Old City especially during the time of Ramadan (beginning 13
September, for 30 days) by supporting shop owners, initiating a clean-up
campaign, and decorating the Old City with banners. Al Natsche also said he
would contact the Chamber of Commerce about CPT's idea of a shopping
brochure.
Al Natsche especially thanked CPT for trying to intervene during the recent
shop closures at the entrance to the Old City. (See early August Updates,
especially for 09 August.) Al Natsche hopes that Israel will respond
positively to international pressure for the removal of all the checkpoints
surrounding Hebron. "The checkpoints affect both the lives of the residents
in their mobility and the economic viability of the city," he said.
Al Natsche talked about the deaths of Rachel Corrie and Tom Fox and how the
city might honor them on their anniversaries. Roe described the March 2007
action on the first anniversary of Fox's death when CPT and others planted
an olive tree in the street close to the CPT apartment.
Roe and Wendeln then went to visit members of the extended Shaheen family
who used to be CPT neighbors in the Old City, but who now live in another
area of Hebron. Many of the families moved out after the Israeli military
closed Shuhada Street and welded the doors shut in late December 2002. Now
these residents have made new lives in other neighborhoods and do not want
to move back. However, many former Old City residents have told CPTers that
they would like to return to the Old City if it became safe for
Palestinians.
Wednesday 29 August
Wendeln, Uhler and their translator, Zleekha Mutahseb, visited Mousa Abu
Turki, the mayor of Qilqis, to determine ways CPT might help with the
upcoming olive harvest. As the group entered this small farming village
between Hebron and Yatta, they had to climb over an enormous
earthen-and-boulder roadblock. Uhler and Zleekha remarked that soldiers
continue to build up the mound as a response to any resistance to the
occupation on the part of the Qilqis villagers.
Abu Turki said that the main need would be accompaniment of the olive
growers at harvest time in early November because of interference from Beit
Haggai settlers. He also pointed out the difficulties Palestinians have
selling their produce in an Israeli-controlled economy.
Abu Turki told the visitors about his father's tragic death at the hands of
a settler boy and that Israelis had taken over his family's memorial space
along the road to remember their own dead.
Thursday 30 August
In the morning, Wendeln, Lynes and Roe headed for Issa Amro's newly rented
house in Tel Rumeida. They met EAPPI there for worship and then stayed,
with two others from ISM (International Solidarity Movement), watching over
the house to protect it from settler damage throughout the day.
Friday 31 August The haying action at the Al-Ja'abari farm was coordinated
by the Sons of Abraham, an Israeli organization related to Breaking the
Silence. Settlers climbed the staircase they had illegally installed in the
Al-Ja'abari land as the sunset and Shabbat began. After Wendeln conversed
with a settler and her small child, the woman asked Wendeln if she was an
Israeli.
Lynes and other internationals remained overnight with the Al-Ja'abari
family. The family feared vandalism by the settlers, since the night before
the settlers smashed an outside light and threw stones at the house. (See 3
September 2007 CPTnet release, " HEBRON: Israeli settlers threaten land,
injure nonviolent activist.")
Saturday 01 September
Dianne Roe and Mary Wendeln met John Lynes at the Gutnick Center checkpoint
during school patrol for the first day of classes. Lynes had just returned
from his overnight with the Al-Ja'abari family in Jabel Johar. He had stayed
there, following the weekly nonviolent haying action, to "get in the way"
should Israeli settlers from the nearby Kiryat Arba settlement attack the
home during the night.
Roe and Wendeln went on to Qurtuba School to accompany an EAPPIer
(Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel) alone on school
patrol there.
In Wadi Al-Ghroos, Uhler began her first day of home stay with the Sameer
Jaber family by accompanying the bigger girls to their high school. The
walk was long, about thirty minutes, not especially arduous, but somewhat
dangerous with cars zipping by, and no sidewalk. The girls have to pass an
Israeli army barracks and checkpoint at the gate into the Wadi. The
soldiers have harassed them in the past to the point that some of the Jaber
girls dropped out of school. No problems occurred during the walk.
Julie Rowe, a pastor of the Lutheran Church in Jerusalem, brought Karin
Ryan, director of the human rights program at the Carter Center in Atlanta,
Georgia to the Hebron District. Rowe brought with her Christina Gibb, CPT
reservist from New Zealand and Valerie Joy and Mary Rose from Australia and
New Zealand.
Roe met them in Beit Ummar, a small farming community eight miles north of
Hebron. The group visited the area of Beit Ummar called named after former
U.S. President Jimmy Carter to see the home where Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter
stayed during their visit to the town more than twenty years ago. The group
also went to see the family of Farhan Al Qam, the imprisoned mayor of Beit
Ummar. Family members were not at home, but Ryan extended greetings from
President Carter to the mayor and his wife through relatives.
The group then went on to Hebron for a tour of the Old City and a walk down
Shuhada Street. The soldier at the Shuhada Street or Israeli side of the
Beit Romano checkpoint, in an unusual departure from military orders,
unlocked the checkpoint gate and allowed them entry into Bab il Baladiyya
and the souq ("market", in Arabic).
Sunday 02 September
On the way to morning patrol at Qurtuba School, Roe and Wendeln witnessed
Israeli soldiers preventing the headmistress and her teachers from going
through the gate at the Dubboya Street checkpoint. The headmistress finally
convinced the soldiers that their names were on a special list that enabled
them as teachers to go back and forth without going directly through the
metal detectors. Language was part of the problem, as the soldiers claimed
that they did not speak Arabic or English. Yet, the day before, an EAPPIer
spoke in English with the same soldiers about a damaged door at the
checkpoint.
At Qurtuba School, Roe met a well-known doctor who lives near there in the
Tel Rumeida section of the Old City. He was enrolling his two young
children at the school. He told Roe that he had always sent his children to
private schools because of all of the violence the Qurtuba children faced
from the Israeli settlers, who live directly across the street in the Beit
Hadassah settlement. The doctor said that he decided to enroll his children
in Qurtuba School now because international groups such as: CPT, EAPPI, and
ISM (International Solidarity Movement) had helped twice in making the
residents of Tel Rumeida feel much safer at home. He also felt that by
enrolling them in the local school he was increasing security for everyone
in the community.
Monday 03 September
Rose and Lynes went to Tel Rumeida to check out a report of a new temporary
or "flying" Israeli checkpoint. The "checkpoint" turned out to consist of
three thin posts linked by white ribbons. No extra soldiers were stationed
there other than the two usually guarding the top of Tel Rumeida Road. When
a CPTer inquired about the temporary checkpoint, a soldier said there had
been reports of an impending terrorist attack.
Roe, Wendeln, and Joy went on school patrol to Qurtuba School. Roe waited
for the headmistress and the teachers from Qurtuba School at the Dubboya
Street checkpoint, and Joy and Wendeln went on to the school. The small
group of teachers got through in a few minutes, but a teacher who came five
minutes later was forced to wait. A member of Machsom Watch (an Israeli
women's peace group that monitors checkpoints) was on the Tel Rumeida side
of the checkpoint, and, as Roe videotaped from behind the teacher, the
Israeli woman convinced the soldier to let the teacher pass. Roe then went
through the checkpoint and thanked the woman for her intervention.
Lynes, Gibb, and Rose patrolled in the Ibrahimi Mosque gate and Yatta Road
checkpoints area. On the side road beyond the Yatta Road checkpoint, a
persistent Palestinian boy harassed, obstructed, and followed Gibb.
On a random visit in Wadi Al-Ghroos, Uhler, with Zleekha Mutahseb
translating, discovered that the Israeli army camp in the Wadi was supplying
water on that day to a family near the Jaber's. (See 17 September CPTnet
release, "HEBRON: Water from the Israeli Army." The area receives very
little water from the municipality; in desperation, the head of the family
had gone to the camp commander for help.
Tuesday 04 September
During school patrol, soldiers detained four teachers, including the
headmaster of the Ibrahimi Boys School, at the Mosque Gate. Lynes intervened
"with more vehemence than discretion," he said, but with little useful
effect. He telephoned the Israeli Army District Commander. After about
twenty minutes, the teachers were released, late for school.
Roe met a friend of CPT reservist, Cassandra Dixon, with her two daughters
at the Hanthala ("Resistance") Café. They bumped into the neighbour's
teenaged daughter, who invited them to her home for a visit. The group,
joined by Gibb, Rose, and Joy, were welcomed by the whole family. The
father spoke warmly of the way CPT escorted this daughter to school when she
was little and of the support CPT has given the family over the years when
soldiers have searched their house.
In the evening, the whole team went to Issa Amro's newly rented house on Tel
Rumeida for a shared meal to bid farewell to the departing ISM coordinator.
Issa, who had recovered from his beating by settlers on the Al-Ja'aberi land
the previous Friday evening, told the group how he had achieved possession
of the house. Ultimately, he had to go to an Israeli court to have his
right to rent the house confirmed. The army occupied the house for at least
five years, and settlers are still trying to take it over. To prevent that
from happening, ISMers are maintaining a presence there twenty-four hours a
day. The CPT team committed to supplement ISM, as needed. Hani Abu Haikel,
another long-time friend of CPT Hebron, who lives next door, came by. Both
he and Issa talked with passion about non-violent resistance.
The group celebrated the day's news that the Israeli Supreme Court had
ordered the government to redraw the route of the West Bank barrier near
Bi'ilin, where villagers have staged non-violent protests every week for
over two years, some of which CPT has attended.
Wednesday 05 September
A group of twelve Japanese, organised by Siraj (Siraj Center for Holy Land
Studies), came for a short tour, led by Lynes, before going on to At-Tuwani.
At about 9:00 p.m., CPT heard from ISM that soldiers were rounding up men
between the ages of 18 and 35 at the Ibrahimi Mosque Gate in Hebron's Old
City. Roe and Rose followed the soldiers and videotaped as they were
entering houses in different alleyways. Lynes and some visitors from Italy
went to the mosque where soldiers were detaining the men. Gibb, Wendeln and
translator Mutahseb followed soldiers as they entered homes to look for men.
At 11:30 p.m., the soldiers allowed the last of the Palestinian men to
return home. Wendeln took some TIPH (Temporary International Presence in
Hebron) members into a house to see the damage soldiers had caused. Wendeln
heard the soldiers tell Mutahseb that they were conducting a survey of all
the inhabitants of the Old City, filling in forms about the occupants of
every house.
Thursday 06 September
When Gibb and Rose were patrolling near Al Fayha'a Girls School and the gate
beyond the mosque, three soldiers were practising their "ack-ack drill,
pointing their guns at the little girls passing by. Gibb spoke to the
soldiers, telling them strongly they were frightening the children and
should do their practise another time. Their replies were: "There's no
problem!" and "Go back to England (sic)"
Roe went to Beit Ummar and visited Abu Nabil Al Qam, CPT's landlord in Beit
Ummar in 2002. Abu Nabil's son Munther introduced Roe to his bride of less
than a week. They will live in the apartment where CPT lived in 2002. Roe
then visited other families in the apartment building. Everyone asked about
all of the CPTers they had known from their time in Beit Ummar.
Roe then visited Edna and Abu Ra'ed Sabarnah. They have carefully
documented the losses on their land near the Karme Tsur Israeli settlement
since 2004, when Israel put a fence around the settlement, preventing
Palestinians from reaching their land. For three years, Abu Ra'ed (and many
others in Beit Ummar) has been unable to harvest his grapes, plums, olives,
and other fruit. They have worked with a lawyer during this time. Last
week they learned that their lawsuit against the State of Israel was
successful. The State of Israel must compensate them for their losses.
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