CPTnet
12 April 2006

HEBRON: Israeli settlers seize another Palestinian building

A late-night call from a Palestinian on Thursday 6 April alerted the
Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron to the latest seizure by Israeli
settlers of an empty Palestinian apartment building. A crowd of settlers
between Shuhada Street and the Avraham Avinu settlement was preventing him
from reaching his home just outside the old market area. CPTers Art Arbour
and David Janzen responded to the man's appeal and tried to join him, but
the Israeli military had closed the gates from the market. They returned to
the CPT apartment and telephoned him. He eventually managed to reach home
without assistance.

Next morning Janzen, accompanied by David Corcoran, John Lynes and Paul
Rehm, visited his family to discover their situation. Settlers had occupied
an apartment building facing their home. The apartment building is owned by
a Palestinian who now lives in the Palestinian-controlled area of Hebron.
It has been empty for over three years. Israeli settlers claim to have
purchased the building, but they had to use a sledgehammer and crowbar to
get in. The army's Civil Administration is checking their claim. In the
past such claims have sometimes been fraudulent, but ownership can be hard
to prove.

The Palestinian family, living in a small apartment rented from the Waqf (an
Islamic foundation), now finds itself sandwiched between the new Israeli
occupiers and the existing Avraham Avinu settlement. To enter or leave
their home they must run a gauntlet between soldiers and hostile settlers.
They are particularly anxious about sending their youngest son out to
school. The Christian Peacemakers promised to look out for him at 7:15 each
morning on school patrol.

Israeli soldiers are now stationed on the roof of the Palestinian family's
home. They have watched as the settlers bring furniture and rig electric
cables from Avraham Avinu. The incursion has caused much speculation among
Hebron residents. They fear that the building the settlers seized might be
one more link joining the settlements in the Old City of Hebron to the much
larger settlement of Kiryat Arba. Others argue that the incursion is a
desperate move by Israeli settlers who fear that their days in Hebron are
already numbered.