CPTnet
December 9, 2004

AT-TUWANI: Israeli police protect Palestinian children from Israeli settler
attack

by Jerry Levin

Today, Israeli police hurriedly loaded into their vehicle five Palestinian
children from the village of Tuba as they walked towards their school in At
Tuwani. Their early morning trek on foot was disrupted by stick-wielding
Israeli school boys from the nearby Ma'on settlement.

According to the Palestinian children, even though Israeli soldiers in a
military jeep and Israeli police in a police vehicle were escorting them,
the two Israeli youths, hidden in tree-shrouded Havot Ma'on outpost, got as
close to them as five or six meters. But the police, acting quickly, loaded
the frightened children into their vehicle. Then the two vehicles sped off
toward At-Tuwani.

As the procession rolled by trees lining the last quarter mile of their
route, CPT observer, Jerry Levin, and Operation Dove observer, Adriano,
heard the loud smash of an object hitting one of the vehicles. Students
later confirmed that the Israeli youths had thrown four or five stones at
them as they rode by in the police vehicle.

A student added that, besides seeing the settler youth dart toward them from
the trees hiding an Israeli settlement outpost, a settlement school vehicle
could be seen parked close by with a woman sitting next to the driver's
seat. The student said that she and her friends have seen this vehicle
often, and she knows that the boys who tried to attack her and her friends
go to the school in Ma'on.

Before the attack, the CPT and Operation Dove observers could hear the
settlement boys lustily singing a martial tune, as if to pump themselves up
emotionally for their attempt to frighten or hurt the children.

After school at noontime, the children, protected by their Israeli escorts,
passed by the settlement outpost without incident. Today's incident marks
the second time Israeli police have found it necessary to load Palestinian
children into their vehicles in order to protect them from Israeli settler
attacks.

The Israeli authorities began providing this protective service following a
number of violent or potentially violent incidents after the current school
year began in September. During two of those incidents, two CPTers and a
member of Operation Dove were beaten so severely by masked settler attackers
that hospitalization was necessary.