My first, angry draft of something that will eventually appear on CPTnet.  I am furious that soldiers thought that throwing sound bombs, normally used for riot control, into a market where people were closing up shops and heading home for the weekend, would be funny.  I assumed it would be settlers, but the people in the market I talked to would have had no reason for letting settlers off the hook. kk

Soldiers throw sound bombs in market as shopkeepers close up for evening; more than three injured

At approximately 7:00 on 21 May 2011, CPTers heard an explosion and shortly afterwards received a call from a frantic shop owner who said a man had been hit near her shop.  When Esther Mae Hinshaw and Kathleen Kern arrived on the scene, they saw a man, semi-conscious, who had been hit in the head by a sound bomb.  As Kern followed calls urging her to come toward Bab il Baladiye, a sound bomb fell approximately six feet away from her, and closer to a young woman who became temporarily deaf and subsequently showed signs of shock.

A soldier patrol then came through as small children in the area were wailing from fright.  One soldier commanded them “Uskut!”  (Shut up!) 

Four more explosions followed in different parts of the market.  Laurens Van Esch and Hinshaw accompanied a shopkeeper to her home.  People in the market urged Kern to go toward Bab il-Baladiyye, the entrance of the Old City, to be present as ambulances arrived.  A father with his daughter in his arms ran past her toward the ambulance.  His daughter, who was sobbing, had been playing outside when a sound bomb fell near her and afterwards she could not stand up.

Although many settler youth were in town, all witnesses who saw the sound bombs thrown from the roofs in disparate areas of the market said that soldiers had thrown them.  No demonstrations or gatherings of any kind were happening in the market at the time.