CPTnet
October 5, 2004

HEBRON DISTRICT: Israeli military and settler security interfere in
children's journeys to and from school

On the morning of October 3, 2004 members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams
(CPT) again escorted children from Tuba to their school in al-Tuwani in the
South Hebron hills. They attempted to follow the same path--past the Ma'on
settlement--that Chris Brown and Kim Lamberty had taken when settlers
attacked and badly injured them on Wednesday, October 29, 2004.

Despite a military permit confirming the children's right to pass, the army
and the settler security police blocked their path, declaring it to be a
Closed Military Zone. After long negotiations, the Israeli police finally
allowed the children to pass with a police escort but without their CPT
accompaniers.

On their journey home the children, with their CPT escort, were forced by
the military to take a ten-kilometer detour along ill-defined sheep tracks.
The Israeli Lieutenant in command said, "Ten kilometers is not a long way to
school. I went further than that. They can take a tractor like everyone
else. These people are used to it."

Christian Peacemaker Teams is present in the area at the request of
Palestinian villagers who are suffering ongoing harassment from Israeli
settlers that the Israeli authorities have chosen neither to prevent nor to
punish.