CPTnet
14 April 2007

HEBRON UPDATE: 1-7 April 2007

On team during this period were Art Arbour, John Lynes, Ilse Muehlsteph,
Abigail Ozanne, Paul Rehm, Kathie Uhler, and Mary Wendeln.

Sunday 1 April

John Lynes, Abigail Ozanne and Mary Wendeln represented CPT in a follow up
meeting with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and Ecumenical
Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) at the ISM office to
coordinate school patrol coverage and other monitoring activities during
Passover.

Monday 2 April

Art Arbour and John Lynes joined thirty-five Palestinians at the weekly
demonstration sponsored by the Palestine Popular Committee to pressure the
Israeli military to open Dubboya Street to Palestinian traffic.

Tuesday 3 April

Arbour, on school patrol at the Yatta street checkpoint, observed a minor
rebellion by fifty or so students waiting for Israeli soldiers to process
them one by one through the metal detector. A four-year-old girl about
two feet tall started the action by walking under the closed gate without
the soldiers stopping her. A broad smile crossed her face as she looked
back at her friends still in line.

Five minutes later a fifteen-year-old boy stepped out of the long line,
walked around the barrier and insisted that the soldier check his bag
immediately. A brisk argument between the boy and the soldier followed, to
no avail. Arbour heard the school bell ring and yelled at the soldiers to
let the students pass. The soldiers began to allow the very young boys
less than ten years of age to move quickly around the barriers. The older
boys tried to follow this example. The soldiers became nervous; one of
them donned his gun in order to move the boys back into line and away from
the barrier. Eventually the soldiers decided to let the boys pass in an
accelerated fashion without individual searches.

During the afternoon Lynes and Ozanne patrolled along Haret il Jaber
(called Worshippers' Way by settlers) to the multi-family building
recently occupied by Israeli settlers. On their way home, they gave advice
and support to two ISM observers threatened with arrest at the Ibrahimi
Mosque checkpoint. The Israeli border police allowed the ISMers to depart.

Wednesday 4 April

Arbour, Ozanne and a Palestinian friend left the Old City through a
Palestinian home, because the Israeli military had locked the Mosque gate
for Passover. They came out onto the bottom of Shuhada Street near the
Ibrahimi Boys School. They stopped in the street briefly to call the other
CPTers and make sure they knew how to get out of the Old City. Ozanne
noticed a squad of soldiers on the roof of the building they had just
exited. A soldier in the street told the CPTers and their friend to move.
The Palestinian friend said she would move as soon as she finished her
phone call. The soldier demanded her ID. When she said she did not have it
with her, he became angry. "No one is allowed to walk by here with out an
ID," the soldier told them. When the friend explained that she had just
come out of the home without being stopped, he argued, "I didn't see you.
Now you can't go back." Finally the soldier became so frustrated with the
Palestinian woman that he told her to go home and leave him alone. She
left and Arbour and Ozanne continued to monitor the area. Children
exiting the building looked afraid when they saw all the soldiers around
and the settlers and Jewish visitors walking by. The CPTers observed a
significantly larger Israeli police and military presence due to the Jewish
holiday.

A Palestinian man from the Hebron Land Defense Committee stopped by to
share some news about land confiscation with the team. Thirteen years ago,
the committee had filed suit with Israel to reclaim thirty-six dunams (one
dunam=1/4 acre) of land Israel confiscated from Palestinians near the
villages of Betar Illit and Wadi Fukin on the Green Line, west of
Bethlehem. The previous week, Israel returned the land. Unfortunately,
the man continued, two days earlier, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) paved a
road between the Haggai settlement, near Qilqis, and a hill 600 meters
northwest of the settlement and 200 meters from route 60, confiscating
Palestinian land in the process. The Palestinian man fears that Israel
will now build an IDF post on the hill. In this way, as well as others,
Israel has been gradually, and illegally, expanding Haggai.

Arbour and Ozanne patrolled lower Shuhada Street again around noon when
the children were leaving school. The soldiers allowed some girls to enter
the Old City through the house of a woman who had helped children from the
Old City get to school under curfew in the first years of the Intifada by
putting a ladder out her window. A group of about forty teachers and
students gathered, trying to enter the old city to go home. The group
waited about a half hour before the military decided they could enter the
old city through a home. In the meantime, over a hundred Jewish visitors
and settlers passed them on the street.

During an evening conversation, a Palestinian farmer reported that when
weather conditions force him to purchase water, the Israeli authorities
charge him five times what they charge Israelis in the settlements.

Thursday 5 April

Ozanne observed soldiers taking three Palestinian youths, aged 15, 12, and
10 years, into custody, blindfolding and holding them in a building in the
military base for over an hour before releasing them. She informed
Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), who sent a
representative to the army to try to help the boys. Ozanne, Paul Rehm and
a doctor met them after the release. The doctor examined the bruises one
of the youths suffered as soldiers blindfolded him. The soldiers said the
boys had thrown stones. The boys said they were on the roof trying to
adjust their TV antenna. One boy said that the soldiers said "bad words"
to them, hurt his face by grabbing him, but said that they also gave them
water. The soldiers have detained the fifteen-year-old three times. Ozanne
called back TIPH, reported their names and ages and let them know that
soldiers had released the boys.

Team members observed soldiers escorting several Jewish tour groups as
they made their way through the souq.

Arbour and Rehm visited a family in the Beqa'a Valley. The Israeli
government confiscated most of their land (thirty-five dunums) for a
security fence and settlers-only road when Kiryat Arba expanded. Family
members reported that the IDF enter