CPTnet
15 September 2005

HEBRON: Israeli army turnabouts keep frustrated Palestinians guessing at
checkpoint

by Jerry Levin

Soldiers guarding the Dubboya Street checkpoint on 11 September 2005
retreated from their willingness to let teachers and students on their way
to a Tel Rumeida girls' school avoid passing through newly installed
electromagnetic screening equipment. [See 8 September CPTnet release,
"Continuing settler harassment, security measures, and cultural fears mar
the start of school in Hebron" and 9 September release, "A second day of
confrontation, anger, doubt and fear at checkpoint."]

The soldiers said despite earlier permission, only four pregnant teachers
and the students attempting to reach Qurtuba Girls School could pass around
the mobile caravan housing the screening device, but eight other teachers
and the headmistress would have to submit to the screening. The women
decided it would be all or nothing, so all stayed put.

At the same time internationals that had been monitoring the Palestinians'
trip to and from school each day were flatly forbidden to proceed. Other
internationals who recently rented a house in Tel Rumeida in order to
establish an international humanitarian presence there were slapped with a
military order confining them to the house.

Nevertheless, some Internationals and Qurtuba teachers found a way to
quietly slip into Tel Rumeida and help about sixty girls living there make
it to school. Despite this achievement, school was severely disrupted
because of the absence of most of its teachers and those students standing
firm on the other side of the checkpoint. But at 11:00 a.m., a settler with
a gun plus two other settlers climbed the ridge on which the school sits,
walked over to a soldier posted on it not far from the school and struck up
a conversation. The proximity of the armed settler frightened the girls so
much that the teachers sent them home via another path.

On Monday, 12 September, the army's earlier agreement was back in force. So
soldiers allowed teachers, students, and internationals who ordinarily
monitor their progress through the checkpoint. However, it was fortunate
that two of the internationals stayed at the school during the morning to
help monitor the teachers and students' homeward journey, because at
noontime soldiers stopped two of their colleagues attempting to get back in
to Tel Rumeida.

Meanwhile, in the early afternoon, soldiers at a major checkpoint adjacent
to the Ibrahimi Mosque continued to stop high school age boys on their way
home and held some for as long as a half-hour while checking their IDs. In
addition, the soldiers pawed through the bags, purses, satchels, backpacks
of every Palestinian ranging in age from young children to elderly women
also on their way back into the Old City.