CPTnet
27 November 2006

HEBRON: 5-19 November 2006

On team during this period were Donna Hicks, Abigail Ozanne, Kathie Uhler,
Jerry Levin, JoAnne Lingle, Sally Britton and Laurie Hadden, John Lynes.

Sunday 5 November

Many shops were closed in the West Bank to protest the Israeli army's
invasion of Bethlehem on Friday when soldiers shot and killed two young
Palestinian stone throwers.

Monday 6 November

JoAnne Lingle observed Israeli Border Police detaining a young Palestinian
man police at the Ibrahimi mosque. She realized that he was someone who had
had problems there two weeks ago and had come to the CPT office to complain.
Lingle and John Lynes stayed with him until he the soldiers released him.
Later, when they and Abigail Ozanne met up with him again, they saw that he
was limping. He explained that before he received his ID back, a Border
policeman hit him in the leg.

Wednesday 8 November

In the morning, an Old City merchant whose shop is beneath the Israeli
settlement of Avraham Avinu called CPT to say that soldiers on the roof of
Avraham Avinu were throwing chairs down on passersby near his shop. As
Lingle and Hadden arrived, they witnessed a chair coming down and hitting
the stone pavement. The shopkeeper then took them into a courtyard across
the lane to show them other chairs the soldiers had thrown down. He said
that these soldiers had urinated on the roof above in full view of people
walking below (See previous 22 October-4 November 2006 Update.) As the
CPTers left, the soldiers looked down from their post and made unmistakably
rude hand gestures at them.

At about 11:30 a.m., as Jerry Levin and John Lynes left a meeting of local
Palestinian and International humanitarian organizations, they discovered
that stores had closed in H1 (the Palestinian administered area of Hebron)
and that hundreds of Palestinians were demonstrating angrily in Ein Sara
Street and were moving towards H2. The protest was a spontaneous reaction
to the early morning Israeli artillery bombardment of Beit Hanoun in
northern Gaza, which killed nineteen civilians including eight children and
four women from one family. (See 8 November 2006 CPTnet release, "HEBRON:
CPT observes protest on behalf of Gazans turn into dangerous confrontation
with Israeli military."

Later Hadden, Britton and Lingle observed a soldier at the Beit Romano
checkpoint pushing a young Palestinian man against the wall. The soldier
also had his hand around the Palestinian's neck. After several minutes, he
released the man.

Then Hadden and Lingle on patrol in the Old City watched soldiers loudly
ordering merchants to close their shops, pointing their guns, and swinging
batons to make them hurry. With a baton, they hit a street cleaner pushing
a cart as he tried to hurry through the souq.

Thursday 9 November

Hadden, Britton and Lingle in H1 learned that a much smaller demonstration
than the one occurring the day before took place near the Dubboya Street
checkpoint. The soldiers responded to stone throwing with percussion
grenades.

A representative of the Hebron Land Defense Committee said he thought that a
Third Intifada is beginning and that it will bring violence inside Israel
and in the Occupied Territories as well.

Friday 10 November

The three-day strike to protest the killings Wednesday of nineteen people in
Gaza by the Israeli Army ended. Donna Hicks and two guests saw signs of
burnt tires on the streets in and around Bab iZaweyya. Near Tel Rumeida
Hicks asked the soldier who said he has been on duty for less than a month,
"How do you find Hebron?" The soldier replied, "Shocking." Later they saw
more tires burning in the streets near Bab iZaweyya.

Saturday 11 November

Because it was Shabbat, settlers were in the streets when CPT began its
morning school patrol. Lynes and an Israeli soldier separated a settler boy
and a Palestinian boy who had gotten in a tussle and sent them on their way.
Then a settler boy spat at Hadden and a guest.

At Tel Rumeida, Lynes and a guest saw Israeli soldiers forcibly preventing
an international human rights observer from photographing Palestinian
children returning home from school. Lynes intervened. The woman insisted
on speaking to an officer. Later an officer eventually ordered his men to
let her photograph as she wished.

Lingle and Hicks assisted an Al Jazeera documentary crew that spent the day
filming CPT activities in Hebron. At Tel Rumeida they were spit at by a Tel
Rumeida settler, Sarah Marzel, and eventually turned back by Israeli
military guards. At the Ibrahimi Mosque gate Border police roughly handled a
Palestinian human rights worker also accompanying the team. (See 15
November 2006 CPTnet release, "All in a day's work.")

Sunday 12 November

In the early morning, JoAnne Lingle, on her way to Beit Ummar, encountered
an Israeli army Jeep and about a dozen Israeli soldiers at the entrance to
the village. Lingle asked what was going on. One of the soldiers answered,
"We want them (young Palestinian men waiting for group taxis known as
'services') to move." Lingle replied, "When they are standing, you want
them to sit. When they are here, you want them there. Why do you want to
control every aspect of their lives." After the Palestinians did move to
another area as ordered, the soldiers left.

At the turnstiles in the Old City leading to the Ibrahimi Mosque, several
small Palestinian boys pestered Donna Hicks, Laurie Hadden and a visiting
delegation . A Border police officer tried to shoo them away, but one of
the boys would not leave. Instead, he got into an argument with a female
Border police officer. Then the boy slapped her. She slapped back. A male
officer grabbed the boy by the arm and stood him against a wall across the
street from the mosque for about twenty minutes. Later as the group headed
back through the Old City, other young boys kept bothering them.
Shopkeepers along the way tried to stop them.

Monday 13 November

In the morning just before school patrol began at Qurtuba Girls School,
Israeli police told Kathie Uhler and a visitor to move away from the steps
going up from Shuhada Street to a walkway leading to the school. The CPTers
said they would, but warned that if settlers tried to harass the Palestinian
children the CPTers would move back. A policeman said, "No need. We will
be there." Promptly at 7:30, more police arrived. No harassmen