CPTnet
5 April 2006

AT-TUWANI UPDATE: 14-23 March 2006

Tuesday, 14 March

Two members of Operation Dove (Doves) spent the night in the Palestinian
village of Susiya.

Wednesday 15 March

The Israeli military stopped a car bringing children from Susiya to school
in At-Tuwani. A soldier ordered the driver out of the car and questioned
him. Two Doves came to investigate. The soldier also questioned them. The
soldier took all of the children's backpacks out of the car and searched
them. After twenty minutes, the soldier ordered the driver and children to
wait for a police escort to school. A few minutes later, another army jeep
arrived with a higher-ranking officer, who quickly permitted the car and
passengers to proceed.

At noon, a villager from Mufakara informed Matt Chandler and a Dove that
settlers from the outpost of Avigail had stolen a donkey a few hours before.
The team members and the villager were unsuccessful in locating the donkey,
so the Palestinians filed a police report.

In the afternoon, settlers threatened shepherds from Karmil who were grazing
their sheep in the valley near Maon. The settlers left shortly after Laurie
Hadden, Diana Zimmerman and a member of Operation Dove arrived. A settler
security guard known as Gedalia drove by for a brief inspection.

Thursday March 16 A film crew from the Media Project of the Alternative
Information Center (AIC) filmed the school patrol and the children at
school. At noon, a Palestinian youth reported that there were army and
settlers with the Jawiyya shepherds. Zimmerman and Hadden, along with the
two AIC members, investigated, but the incident resolved itself.

A group from Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem
visited the village in the afternoon and spoke with At Tuwani residents.

Friday, 17 March 2006

Shepherds from the village of Jawiyya north of highway 317 were grazing
their sheep on the hill west of and adjacent to the Maon settlement. Israeli
soldiers arrived and demanded that the shepherds leave the hill. The
soldiers also demanded that the CPTers use their influence to deter the
shepherds from using this hill for grazing. The CPTers refused. The
soldiers monitored the shepherds for the remainder of the afternoon.

The team learned that most of the bees from the local hives had died in the
last several days, causing a significant financial loss to villagers. A
representative from the Palestinian Agricultural department said that the
department will investigate to see whether spray used by Maon settlers on
their crops and fruit trees may be the cause. (Settlers have spread poison
on grazing areas in the past.)

Saturday, 18 March 2006

The army school patrol was one-and-a-half-hours late so that the children
did not arrive at school until 9:10 am. CPT placed five calls to the army
before soldiers came.

Two shepherds from the village of Jawiyya were arrested while grazing their
sheep on the hill west of and adjacent to the Maon settlement.

Men from the village of Tuba reported that settlers had killed two of their
goats. After many telephone calls from CPT, Israeli police came to
investigate. The Palestinians were able to identify the settlers
responsible for killing the goats from previous videotapes.

Sunday, 19 March 2006

Two Doves spent the day in Tuba waiting for the police to continue
investigating the killing of the two goats. The police failed to appear.
However, the Doves put together video and photographic evidence of the
carcasses together with identification of the two suspects. The men from
Tuba planned to present these materials to the police.

Tuesday, 21 March

School patrol was late; the police forgot to do their patrol and the army
came at 8:15 a.m.

Settler security and the army moved shepherds and sheep from Jawiyya further
away from Maon settlement. CPTers videotaped some of the interaction.

Setters sprayed a Palestinian boy in the valley with something (maybe pepper
spray) that caused him temporarily to lose his vision.

Wednesday 22 March

Two Israeli settlers (one wearing army uniform) beat the father of the boy
who had been sprayed the previous day. The police arrested the men but then
released them.

A journalist interested from the Baltimore Sun interested in different
perspectives on Christian Zionism interviewed Diana Zimmerman and Matt
Chandler.

Thursday 23 March

The team received word that Jim Loney, Norman Kember and Harmeet Sooden had
been found safe in Iraq.