CPTnet
May 25, 2002
BEIT UMMAR UPDATE: May 13-19, 2002

Monday, May 13
CPTer Mary Lawrence encountered eight soldiers on Beit Ummar's main street
questioning a Palestinian. When Lawrence asked them what the problem was,
a soldier told her to leave. She refused. After the soldiers left, the
Palestinian told Lawrence that the soldiers had entered homes searching for
weapons. When they entered his home, two of the soldiers pinned his uncle
against the wall. The soldiers took a ceremonial knife, a gift from his
grandfather.

Tuesday, May 14
A friend called in the morning and said that two Palestinian men in the
village
of Halhoul, between Hebron and Beit Ummar, had been assassinated the
previous night by the Israeli army. One of the men was the married to a
friend of CPT.

Lawrence and JoAnne Lingle went to Al Arub refugee camp to get a taxi to go
to Beit Fajjar. As they were crossing the bypass road 60 to enter Al Arub,
Three Israeli soldiers stopped them and questioned the CPTers'
Palestinian translator. He was wearing a light blue shirt and navy blue
pants, leading the soldiers to believe he was working for the Palestinian
Authority. When he denied that he was, the soldiers asked where he got his
shirt. He said, "From my father." Then one of the soldiers turned to
Lawrence and Lingle and said, "You hate Jews." When Lingle asked, "Why do
you say that?" he wouldn't respond.

At Beit Fajjar they met with the vice-mayor. He said that the main problem
the village faced was economic. There are 175 stone-cutting factories in
Beit Fajjar but now only thirty-five of them are functioning. Because of the
road
closures by the Israeli army, people from surrounding villages cannot come
to Beit Fajjar to work, and trucks cannot ship the stones out. Jewish
settlers from Efrat shoot at Palestinians working in their fields. The
Israeli army has closed roads north of Beit Fajjar so that Palestinian
farmers cannot get trucks and tractors to their fields. The previous night,
May 13, soldiers arrested a teacher. A month ago the Israeli army shot and
killed a thirteen year-old boy. The family has received no explanation or
apology from the Israeli army. The boy's mother said, "They just shoot and
go quickly."

Soldiers entered Beit Ummar around 11 PM, searched homes and detained and
later released two young Palestinian men after interrogating them.

Thursday, May 16
One of the CPTers' neighbors, a teacher at Hebron University was stopped by
the Israeli army on the bypass road 60 near Beit Ummar. The soldiers made
him open his shirt and searched him. They took his bag, handcuffed him, and
brought him by jeep to the Beit Ummar junction. When another resident of
Beit Ummar reportedly went down to the soldiers' post to see what was
happening,
the soldiers hit him, kicked him in the groin, and made him sit on the
ground with his head down. They told him to "shut up" and accused the
teacher of belonging to Hamas. After finding nothing in his bag they
released him.

Friday, May 17
During an engagement party in the center of Beit Ummar, Children were
playing around tractor tires and one of the tires fell on a two-year-old
boy. A doctor said the injuries were serious and the boy should go to
the hospital. A friend told CPTers, "Today the soldiers did a good thing
for the boy. They made a kind of hospital (probably, First Aid) at the
junction to help him and called an ambulance." The boy did not survive his
injuries and was buried before sundown.

Saturday, May 18
CPTers Greg Rollins, Rick Polhamus, Lingle and Lawrence met with Beit Ummar
Mayor Rashid Awad. They discussed the problems farmers have in getting
their crops to the village vegetable market, and then getting them out
to sell in other markets. Last year Israeli soldiers prevented farmers from
getting their harvest out of Beit Ummar. The soldiers barricaded the road
leading from the market to bypass road 60. They also shot at the farmers in
the market every day. Consequently, the produce remained in the market until
it rotted and had to be thrown away. The total loss to the farmers and to
the municipality was about 5 million shekels last year. Beit Ummar is an
agricultural village and most of the income comes from the harvest of the
fields twice a year. CPT plans to work with other internationals and
Israelis to help the farmers get their produce to other
markets in the coming month and in the fall.

At 3:30PM, CPTERs Lawrence and Lingle heard shooting
saw soldiers on the main street, looking over a wall. They learned from a
neighbor that soldiers had shot at a car with yellow plates (which grant
permission to travel on Israeli bypass roads), hitting the driver in the
neck.

Upon hearing the shooting, CPTer's neighbor, who is a registered nurse with
identification from an Israeli hospital, went to help the injured man. When
the neighbor tried to give first aid, the soldiers shot tear gas at him from
close range. The neighbor showed the soldiers his Israeli hospital
identification card and told them he needed three other men to help get the
injured man out of the car. Soldiers finally permitted him to help and
agreed to call an ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived one-half hour
later, the man had died. The team learned later that the man who died was a
doctor from Jerusalem and a Palestinian Israeli. Israeli police came and
arrested the other passenger in the doctor's car. He had been shot in the
arm.

Sunday, May 19
Lingle and Lawrence went to the village of Al Jabah, which lies between the
Jewish settlements of Bet Shemesh and Gush Etzion. They met with the mayor.
He said that the Gush Etzion settlement had confiscated 4000 dunums of
Jabah's land. The village has many problems with the settlers who shoot at
the Palestinians when they go to work in their fields. In addition, the
soldiers had cut 400 trees from one Palestinian's land and plowed a road
through it. The soldiers drive jeeps and a tank through the village daily.
They have put up four road blocks on the main road that leads into the
village, making travel to and from Hebron and surrounding towns almost
impossible.