CPTnet
May 17, 2002
Beit Ummar Update: April 21 - April 28, 2002

Monday, April 22
JoAnne Lingle and Mary Lawrence made a visit to Al Arub refugee camp with a
translator and met with some members of the translator's family. He
explained that although they have lived in al Arub since 1948, they do not
consider that they are "from Al Arub camp." He said, "If you ask any child
here where he is from, even though he was born here, he will answer 'from
Iraq al Manshiyya' or the name of the village where his grandparents came
from in 1948.'

Thursday, April 25
Lawrence, Lingle and Dianne Roe went to the Beit Ummar municipality, which
has moved its offices to a new building. Municipal employees were making
preparations to back up their records and store them in another place as a
precaution
in case there the IDF invaded. When the Israeli army invaded neighboring
Sa'ir the previous week, soldiers destroyed town records along with the
communications center.

Friday, April 26
An Israeli woman called and asked if CPT could help to get some medicine
and supplies to a family that she knew in Dura, which was under curfew. Greg
Rollins went into Jerusalem and collected the supplies and delivered them
to the family in Dura.

Saturday, April 27
A friend called to say that his ten-year-old cousin who lives in
Al Arub refugee camp was shot in the leg by Israeli soldiers on Friday and
and then taken by family members to a hospital in Hebron.

A doctor at the Beit Ummar clinic told Lawrence
that even though neither the Red Crescent or the Red Cross fund his clinic,
he had put both those signs on the clinic doors after Israeli soldiers had
come
through the town last month and shot into the clinic. He hoped that the Red
Crescent sign on the doors would deter the soldiers from shooting into the
clinic again.

Monday, April 29
CPTers JoAnne Lingle and Mary Lawrence went with an electrical engineer
from Al Arub refugee camp to the village of Shuyoukh, where the IDF had
blown up the communications center on April 25 (See May 14 release:
"Shuyoukh: Disneyland of the Hebron District." )

Wednesday, May 1
Lingle and Lawrence went to the village of Surif. On April 24 at 1AM,
Israeli
soldiers entered the village, going into houses by breaking down doors and
windows. They arrested 114 men. The men were blindfolded, handcuffed, and
had to leave wearing only nightclothes. The CPTers learned that all except
thirty-five of the men had been released.

The CPTers saw broken furniture, mirrors and windows in the homes. The
families told them that the soldiers also had taken valuables, including
money and gold and destroyed computers. In one room soldiers had broken a
framed embroidered map of Palestine hanging on the wall among family
pictures, which the soldiers did not damage.

Thursday, May 2
The Team received a report from a resident of Al Arub refuge camp saying
that the IDF had entered Al Arub at 3AM and arrested 150 men. Six had been
taken from one family. Later a report from Al Arub said
that the military had taken 300 men.

Sunday, May 5
The Israeli bypass road 60, closed to Palestinian vehicles
for more than one month, was re-opened. Because of the road closure,
Palestinians from Beit Ummar have had to walk, through the fields for
several kilometers to leave Beit ummar.