CPTnet
30 August 2006

HEBRON: Increased Israeli military harassment of Palestinians in Hebron

by Christina Gibb

Since the war in Lebanon began, the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) has
seen increased military activity in Hebron, especially in and around the Old
City.

Members of CPT have gone to the houses of four different neighbours when
soldiers have invaded them during the last three weeks. Typically, a patrol
of six soldiers enters and makes the family stay in one room, while the
soldiers search the rest of the house, often turning everything upside down.
They then often occupy one room where they make themselves at home, and take
turns to sleep in it. At one house, when CPTers were there, the soldiers
changed their minds and left without spending the night.

The team heard that on the other side of the Old City-- on the hillside
facing the large settlement of Kiryat Arba across the valley--soldiers had
invaded at least three houses. They stayed for four days, beginning 22
August. Dianne Roe and John Lynes visited two of the multiple family
dwellings on the third day. The soldiers were occupying the top (second)
floor. They had turned the family out, and did not allow Roe and Lynes to
enter.

The family was staying with relatives. When Roe and Christina Gibb met the
father at his stall in the market, he told them that fifteen soldiers had
stayed there in his home. They had only allowed him to return for a few
minutes that morning to collect a few essential clothes for work. His wife
said she had not been permitted in to collect anything for herself or the
children. The soldiers allowed the family on the lower floor to remain
there, but the mother was crying when Lynes and Roe talked with her. She
told them she felt like she was in a prison. "It is very difficult; the
soldiers only let us go out for one hour a day," she said.

Soldiers seem to be detaining more men without charges. In one incident,
soldiers seized two cousins, aged about twenty and nineteen, in the middle
of the night, at a shop well inside the part of the City controlled by the
Palestinian Authority. They subsequently threw the younger man out of the
army jeep; he sustained broken jaw and a broken front tooth. The cousin,
whom CPT knows well, was taken away blindfolded and handcuffed. Recently,
the army came back for the younger cousin whom it had let go three weeks
ago. His mother told us that first, four army jeeps came and encircled the
building, and the soldiers looked violent. They left when they found he was
not there, but two Border Police came later and took him away quietly. His
mother was particularly worried because his jaw was still causing him much
pain and he had been due to return to the doctor the next day.