CPTnet
20 February 2007
HEBRON UPDATE: 29 January - 10 February 2007

On team during this period were Bill Baldwin, Janet Benvie, Bob Holmes,
Barbara Martens, Rich Meyer, Abigail Ozanne and Dianne Roe.

Monday, 29 January 2007

A soldier stopped Bill Baldwin and Abigail Ozanne on Shuhada Street and made
them take a detour up the steps and past the Qurtuba School. Soldiers were
replacing small blocks of the old vegetable market beside Shuhada Street.
Two soldiers told Ozanne they were fortifying the closure to keep the
Palestinians and settlers separate.

Soldiers stopped Ozanne and a visitor from entering the old city by Gates 4
& 5 later in the day.

Soldiers at the mosque held two Palestinians for over an hour. Ozanne spoke
with the soldiers and a moment later, they returned the men's IDs.

Tuesday 30 January 2007

Jan Benvie and Ozanne took two Italian journalists on a tour of the old
city. A soldier informed the group that the army had arrested about twenty
settlers a few days before when they tried to get into the Old City.

Wednesday 31 January

Baldwin went to Kiryat Arba police station with a man whose son police were
detaining there. The son was arrested when he went to Israel to work.
Baldwin tried, unsuccessfully, to arrange a visit, but, after many telephone
calls, the boy's father was able to leave clothes at the gate.

In the afternoon, Israeli soldiers blocked the souq (market), preventing
Palestinians from traveling in any direction. Soldiers were reinforcing the
fencing behind the shops. A soldier told the CPTers that they were putting
up barriers to prevent settler attacks on Palestinians. The soldiers later
welded closed the back door of a Palestinian home that overlooks the army
base.

Thursday 1 February 2007

Palestinians from Tel Rumeida held an action on the H1 side of the Dubboya
checkpoint in the afternoon. Children from the area were invited to
participate in T-shirt painting, on the theme of Martin Luther King Jr. and
the civil rights movement in the US. Israeli soldiers observed closely
throughout, but no violent incidents occurred.

(see photographs at
http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album201)

Friday 2 February 2007

Bob Holmes led a tour group of ten priest-scholars from the Pontifical
Biblical Institute. Israeli soldiers prevented them from visiting the tombs
of Ruth and Jesse at Tel Rumeida.

Two border police at the Ibrahimi mosque shouted and pushed young
Palestinian who came for noon prayers. The police also held a group of
fourteen Palestinian men for over half an hour, but released them just as
the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) arrived.

Israeli soldiers told Rich Meyer, Ozanne, and Palestinian friend from
Bethlehem that the turnstiles at the Mosque gate were not working because
the electricity was off. The soldiers told them to go to Gates 4 & 5 but
other soldiers there refused to let them out. Almost twenty Palestinians
were trying to exit the Old City at Gates 4 & 5. A soldier became angry,
loaded his gun, and pushed the Palestinians back from the gate at gunpoint.
The same soldier grabbed the video camera and tried, unsuccessfully, to take
it from Ozanne. Nearly an hour after the CPTers first attempted to leave,
the soldiers opened the Mosque Gate. (See video at
http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album202 )

Saturday 3 February 2007

A Palestinian man asked CPT to come to his home because soldiers were there.
Benvie and Dianne Roe accompanied him and found group of six soldiers on the
roof. The commander told CPTers he was "protecting the Arabs from the
Jews." After the soldiers left, the mother of the house invited the CPTers
for tea and told them about occasions when soldiers have searched their home
and other times when they have locked the family in their home while they
use the roof.

Baldwin and Ozanne went to visit the Wadi Ghroos area. One family has
problems accessing their land because of the wall. The family has to
co-ordinate with soldiers and walk two kilometers to get through a gate.
They have only been able to harvest the olives twice in four years and have
lost 200 olive trees. Their apricot trees died because the Israeli
authorities shut off the family's water supply. Families in the area told
CPTers that soldiers come to their homes at night and force them to go out
in to the cold. Settlers throw stones at family members, graze their
animals on Palestinian land and have poisoned the family's trees. Sewage
from settler toilets has polluted some of the land. The families are
dependent on farming because of the high unemployment in the area.

Monday 5 February

In the morning, Dianne Roe and Barbara Martens attended a demonstration
intended to show that Hebronites want their leaders to work collaboratively
and end the frictions between Hamas and Fatah. About 250-300 people
representing both genders walked peacefully several blocks with Palestinian
flags and signs to Manara Square.

Tuesday 6 February

Jan Benvie and Abigail Ozanne attended a peace conference in At-Tuwani.
Nomfundo Walaza, a psychologist on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
from South Africa, talked about nonviolence, truth, and reconciliation in
her country and the possibilities for these things to happen in Palestine.
(See 9 February CPTnet release, "AT-TUWANI: More than 100 villagers attend
nonviolence workshop."

Wednesday 7 February

Roe and Bill Baldwin, on an early afternoon patrol, met a group of Israelis
on their way up the hill to visit the home of a Palestinian who faces
regular harassment from settlers. "I knew you would not get in," the
Palestinian told the group after Israeli soldiers turned them away from the
home. "I saw Sarah Marzel in front of her house. She is the boss of all of
the soldiers, and when I saw her I knew the soldiers would prevent your
visit."

On the way back down the hill, Roe received a phone call from Martens that
Israeli soldiers were holding two young Palestinian boys, thirteen and
fifteen, at Beit Romano checkpoint. The soldiers and police detained
Benvie, Roe and Ozanne for taking pictures and for refusing to leave the
boys, but released them about an hour later. Soldiers released the