Monday, November 1
Settler cars appeared to be holding a drive-in to protest the previous day's
opening of Shuhada Street (Martyr's Street) to Palestinian taxi traffic.
The cars drove right behind each other in single file, blocking the street.
Later in the evening, CPTers noted that soldiers were checking the ID's of
most Palestinian passengers in the Palestinian taxis.

Wednesday, November 3
At least 1200 Israeli/Jewish settlers commemorated the death of a rabbi in
Hebron. The riot police were out in force, as settlers held a march to Tel
Rumeida.

Heavy equipment moving the rubble of a reservoir in the
Beqa'a Valley was confiscated and the driver arrested by the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The driver was later released
and fined.

Friday, November 5
CPTers visited friends in the Beit Ummar area. A man with a
Jerusalem I.D. told them he may soon lose it because the authorities claim
that his "center of life" is not Jerusalem. Many Palestinians with
Jerusalem I.D.s have lost them in the last 4-6 years as Israeli authorities
try to limit and reduce the Palestinian population of the city.

Sunday, November 7
A CPTer accompanied a Jewish-American student group in a
tour of Kiryat Arba after describing CPT's work to them. She
heard a Israeli settler explain to the group that if Palestinians want to
live under Israeli rule, it is fine for them to live in the West Bank (or
Judea and Samaria, as settlers call it). He said that otherwise they should
be evicted.

Monday, November 8
The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) delegation arrived in
Hebron to stay with the team for the week. Abdel Hadi
Hantash of the Palestinian Land Defense Committee (LDC)
described how, despite an initial commitment to removing 40
illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Prime Minister
Barak has reduced the number to 11, and is extending
deadlines for the removal of even those. Hantash added that
the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) seized 80,000 dunums (20,000
acres) of land in the Hebron District for a military zone.

Saturday, November 13
CPTers Reinhard Kober and Jane Adas joined the Israeli Committee Against
House Demolitions ICAHD) to rebuild a demolished house in East Jerusalem
(Beit Hanina).

Joanne Kaufman accompanied Palestinian journalist Kawther
Salam to Yatta to investigate reports that Palestinian farmers
had been injured by settlers hiding out in caves near Havat
Ma'on. A farmer in a Yatta hospital had bruises and 12
stitches in his head from stones and sticks wielded by the 60
or so settlers who attacked the six Palestinian men from an
extended family. The Palestinians had gone to plant
farmland that settlers had prevented them from tending for a
year and a half.

Havat Ma'on is the settlement where Israeli settler Dov
Dribben was killed a year and a half ago. (See CPTnet
releases, April - June 1998.) According to the Palestinian
farmers, Mr. Dribben's wife was with the attackers Saturday
and said that Israeli settlers would never give up the farm
since her husband was killed there.

Sunday, November 14
Jane Adas and Joanne Kaufman visited Palestinian farmers who had been
prohibited from working their fields near 'Tuwaneh, a small village near
Yatta in southern Hebron district, near the Israeli settlement of Ma'on.
(See November 16 release: Hebron Urgent Action: Palestinian Farmers and
Shepherds Driven off their land.) At the end of the visit, the farmers
invited the CPTers to a demonstration to protest the closure of their
fields the next day.

Monday, November 15
Palestine Independence Day. Four CPTers went to Yatta area with Abdel Hadi
Hantash of the Hebron District Land Defense Committee and a journalist.
They waited an hour to enter the closed military area that had been imposed
since the previous day, and were finally allowed in because of the
journalist's privileges. The military stopped them at the next checkpoint,
at the road into 'Tuwaneh.

When the farmers just happened to drive by on their tractor, they invited
the group into the village and their fields. An Israeli officer and 14
soldiers stopped the group of six plus two Palestinian farmers and forbade
them to go to the fields. They said the fields would be opened on Friday.

Bourke Kennedy spoke to seven journalists from Christian
organizations in the U.S. On night patrol, Adas and Ben Kenagy
watched two policemen randomly stopping Palestinian cars by the gas station
just off Shuhada Street. One taxi driver
who was stopped and ticketed told team members that his ticket was for
having a headlight out, although both headlights were in working order.

Tuesday, November 16
Around 11 a.m., CPT received a report from a Beqa'a Valley resident that
electric poles (only for Israeli settlers) were being installed by the
settlers near a Palestinian home in the Beqa'a Valley. Several CPTers went
to visit in the late afternoon, but the poles had been erected in just
under an hour in the morning. The family requested that no action be taken
so as to avoid conflict with settlers.

Kaufman went with a Palestinian journalist to 'Tuwaneh after they received
a call saying that Israeli soldiers were evicting Bedouin families in the
area from their homes and fields. They sneaked into the area to photograph
and interview the families packing up chickens, household pans and goods,
bedding and bedsprings and animal feeders and wood into wagons pulled by
tractors. When asked why they were packing up their own things, the people
replied that they didn't want the soldiers to do it because they would
probably break things and might demolish their simple cave homes.

Soldiers claimed they were just following orders and evicting the families
"for their own safety." One of the Palestinians said to a soldier sitting
on the hood of his jeep, "This is not peace! Where is the peace?"

The pair also noted that Ma'on Farm is now inhabited by Israeli
soldiers.

Wednesday, November 17
Adas, Kennedy and Reinhard Kober visited the Beqa'a Valley and
walked around on the huge walls being built behind Abdel Jawad Jabber's
house. The Israeli settlement of Harsina plans to expand to that hilltop.

Friday, November 19
Adas, Kennedy and Kober happened upon a Israeli settler woman yelling at a
Palestinian man near Beit Hadassah. Settler children threw water and an egg
at passing Palestinians, without any reprimand from either parents or
Israeli soldiers observing the scene. The Palestinian was eventually taken
away in a police van and the crowd dispersed. On the way home, a young
soldiers called the CPTers over and asked how he could join the
organization. He said he comes from a "moshav" (collective farm) in
Israel, hates the army, and wants to do "something meaningful" with his
life when he has completed military service.

Saturday,