Saturday, December 26, 1998
A group of Israeli animal rights and environmental activists from Tel Aviv
came for a tour of Hebron. Part of the day's agenda included talking with
Palestinian activists. For
some of the Israelis, it was the first time they had met with Palestinians.

Monday, December 28
Two Palestinian homes were demolished in Kifal Harith, a village near the
Israeli settlement of Ariel in the northern West Bank. Israeli television
showed footage of Israeli soldiers dragging Husam Abu Yakub, 27, his wife and
three small children from their home, after tossing a canister of tear gas in
the house when they refused to leave.

Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee against Home Demolitions
said their group received several calls from Israelis, asking how to help stop
the policy of home demolitions. Plans to rebuild were set for Friday and
Saturday of that week.

Tuesday, December 29
Hussam Abu Alan, the Reuters photojournalist shot in the back of the head by
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in October 1998 during clashes, visited the team
again. He is in good health,
though he said he is always looking around to see whether something will hit
him again in Hebron. He hopes to return to work soon.

Friday, January 1, 1999
CPTers helped Atta and Rodeina Jabber move into a newly-renovated apartment in
the Old City of Hebron.

Saturday, January 2
Mark Frey, Sara Reschly & Pierre Shantz joined about 60 Israelis and
Palestinians at Kifal Harith ( see above), in an attempt to rebuild a
Palestinian home. The Israeli military had destroyed two homes on Monday,
December 27, and the village decided to rebuild the homes as an active form of
resistance.

The group held a demonstration in front of the soldiers and a few people were
allowed into the village, where they held a symbolic rebuilding ceremony. For
more details, see the
Bat Shalom release, "Rifle Grenade #400," posted on CPT-Discussion network
January 3rd, or contact CPTnet coordinator Kathy Kern for a copy.

Monday, January 4
Curfew was imposed on the Old City of Hebron after
two Jewish settler women were shot around 7:30 a.m. near the Cave of
Machpelah/Abraham Mosque. (See January 4 CPTnet release, "Violence in Hebron:
a Call for Prayers.") CPTers made several grocery runs for neighbors caught
unaware by the curfew.

Shantz visited families whose homes are slated for
demolition in Beit Ummer. He learned that work on a 2-km bypass road that
endangers multiple homes in Beit Ummer was rumored to begin the following
week.

Reschly and Kaufman accompanied Abdel Hadi Hantash of the Hebron Land Defense
Committee to survey the Lubweri hilltop, belonging to the 'Aidi family, which
had been recently bulldozed into a road for settlers.

The entire hilltop - several acres - has been encircled by a
newly-bulldozed road, just as Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Ariel Sharon
told settlers to do after the Wye agreement. The family has the "tabo," a
deed to the land dating back to when the Turkish Ottomans ruled during the
last century. The settlers also bulldozed a road to connect the hilltop to
nearby Israeli settlement Givat Harsina.

Kaufman asked, "This happened SINCE Wye? I thought that no
settlements, house demolitions or land confiscations would occur after Wye."
Hantash replied, "Wye has killed us."

A middle-aged Palestinian woman was pelted with eggs and oranges by a settler
woman beside the Hebron settlement of Avraham Avinu. The incident aggravated
her heart condition. She spent an hour on the ground before emergency medical
help was called, according to Palestinian journalist Kawther Salaam and other
sources.

CPTers visited a Palestinian friend after armed settlers plowed a field
belonging to his family. The family uses the field only in summer; and would
have waited another month until after the rains come to plow it. But "unused"
land in winter may become subject to the possibility of becoming
Israeli "state land" according to Ottoman laws from before the turn of the
century. The friend is seeking legal means to stop possible confiscation of
the field.

Late at night the IDF built a wall of large concrete blocks to close off the
small street from which the settler women had been shot.

Tuesday, January 5
After worship in the park across from the Abraham
Mosque (Cave of Machpelah), the team went to see where settlers had taken over
an uninhabited Palestinian house the previous night. About 20 settler young
men and a teacher had spent the night, and still had plastic chairs set on the
rooftop, with Israeli flags and streamers blowing in the breeze. The house
was abandoned by the settlers later that day.

IDF soldiers keeping watch lounged on the hood of their
jeep. A CPTer asked one why they weren't stopping the takeover. He replied
that the problem should have been taken care of years ago. He then added
earnestly, "In the life, you have to be a good person. It doesn't matter
whether you are a soldier, or police, or whatever. It matters that you are a
good person."

Kaufman and Shantz visited the Atta Jabber family. After just three days in
their new apartment in the Old City, they were experiencing full curfew for
the first time. Soldiers have regularly walked across their roof and the
night before, had been in their third-floor courtyard.

Wednesday, January 6
At 8:20, Kaufman and Reschly heard several shots. Rushing down to the market,
they saw a young Palestinian man
lying on the ground, bleeding, with Israeli soldiers kneeling around him
giving emergency medical care. (See CPTnet release from January 6,
"Palestinian Man Shot by Israeli Soldiers.") Later the team learned that the
man, Bader Al-Quawasmi, aged 24, had died at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

Kaufman and Reschly met two Palestinian women walking in the curfew zone.
They had just come from the hospital; one had cut her foot. They accompanied
the women through the market past the main street until they were past the
most-patrolled area.

Thursday, January 7
Soldiers refused to allow a young man to return to his home to the Israeli-
controlled part of Hebron (H2) because of the curfew.

Reschly asked, "Where is he supposed to sleep tonight? He just wants to go
home."

Soldier: He can sleep at his sister's or at a friends in H1
(Palestinian-controlled part of Hebron)

Reschly: This is not fair.

Soldier: No one is allowed in or out of H-2. It's an order.

Reschly: I'm someone and you're letting me through.

Soldier: You're not an Arabic [sic].

Reschly: Oh, so only Arabs are not allowed in and out.

Soldier: Yes.

Reschly: That's racist.

Soldier: Come to Tel Aviv -- I'll show you around. This is b..s..
her