Friday, January 8
On the way to Jerusalem for a meeting, the team
experienced the hassle of trying to travel during closure. Closure was
imposed on the entire city of Hebron after the shooting of two Israeli settler
women near the Cave of Machpelah (Ibrahimi Mosque)

Monday, January 5
In order to avoid the closure, the group's taxi-van first took a long country
detour in driving rain, through outlying village streets and muddy fields.
Near Jerusalem, Israeli police stopped the van and ordered the Palestinian
taxi-driver to
detour because of an accident further along the road. The driver tried to
take a shorter route through Efrat, an Israeli settlement.

The guards first said entry was denied because "only residents" were allowed
to enter. Sara Reschly then explained that she had been told by a
spokesperson for Efrat that anyone is allowed to enter and exit freely. The
guards then said that the van could not enter because it was nearly dusk and
almost Shabbat (the sabbath). Denied passage through the settlement, the van
took a 45-minute detour through villages on winding roads to enter Jerusalem.

Saturday, January 9
A prayer in the streets was scheduled by Palestinians to protest the closure
of the Ibrahimi Mosque. The Mosque had been closed to Ramadan worshippers due
to a curfew imposed
after the shooting of two Israeli settler women Monday. During curfew no one
can walk in the streets. The prayer witness was canceled when Israel Defense
Forces (IDF) military authorities lifted the curfew for four hours.

Sunday, January 10
CPTers joined a nonviolent demonstration of Palestinians protesting the curfew
and closure. Pierre Shantz and
Sara Reschly were arrested for "stopping soldiers from doing their duty."
(See CPTnet, January 10, "CPTers Arrested for 'Getting in the Way' at
Nonviolent Palestinian Demonstration") In the evening, the IDF lifted the
week-long curfew and closure imposed on Hebron.

Monday, January 11
Reschly and Shantz were released, minus passports and 2000 shekels each,
after being taken to a court hearing in Jerusalem. If charges are not brought
against them by February 1, the passports and money will be returned. (See
CPTnet, January 11, HEBRON: CPTers Reschly and Shantz Released.")

Wednesday, January 13
Sydney Stigge-Kaufman observed another nonviolent demonstration in Ramallah.
One hundred and fifty Palestinian mothers and children of prisoners were
calling for the release of political prisoners (administrative detainees) held
by the
Palestinian Authority.

Thursday, January 14
Shantz and a group of tourists from a U.S. seminary visited Abdel Jawad
Jabber. Israeli bulldozers had just
finished destroying terraces reconstructed by Jabber's son Jawdi (brother to
Atta Jabber) after they were razed last September 1998.

Stigge-Kaufman, Joanne Kaufman and Sara Reschly went to the Bani Naim area
east of Hebron with Abdel Hadi Hantash of the Land Defense Committee to see
the recent work of Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers. A road is being
widened for use by Jewish settlers, and a "by-pass road" about one km long
has been created through a Palestinian farmer's olive orchard.

Farmers showed where Israeli settlers had uprooted olive trees. The farmers
said that the uprooted olive trees were buried in a pit several kilometers
away. Another farmer showed the sawed-off stumps of fence-posts and tangled
remnants of barbed wire that had been damaged by settlers. If land has no
permanent crop such as fruit or olive trees (even if those crops were uprooted
by soldiers or settlers), it can become "state land." This is legalized by
arbitrarily-imposed military laws, and by using a loophole from Ottoman laws a
century ago. "State land" is for the use of Israelis only.

Another farmer showed how bulldozers had cleared a road from a hilltop
Israeli settlement to another hill. That hilltop was cleared, illustrating
again how seriously settlers are taking Sharon's admonition, after the Wye
agreement was signed, to "take every hilltop" -- this despite rumors that
Israel verbally agreed to stop settlement-building during the implementation
of Wye.

Saturday, January 16
CPTers joined members of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions
(ICAHD) and Israeli peace groups, the Atta
Jabber and Yussef Al-Atrash families, a Global Exchange tour, and Palestinian
friends and translators at a restaurant in Hebron for an "iftar," or meal to
break the fast that Muslims have daily during Ramadan. ICAHD member Jeff
Halper, who has organized several rebuildings of demolished houses, said, "We
are all in this together." Yussef Al-Atrash said to the 40-odd people
gathered in the crowded upstairs room, "I wish Mr. Netanyahu would come to
see such a meeting. Maybe he would change his mind just a little bit. This
is peace -- not accomplished by a tank or a bulldozer, but with a smile."