CPTnet
12 July 2012
AL-KHALIL: Palestinians protest turnstile installation at military checkpoint

The Israeli military installed a turnstile at a checkpoint on 9 July in Al-Khalil’s Al Salaymeh neighborhood. Sixty Palestinians from the neighborhood gathered to protest. The protest began peacefully, but ended with one Palestinian man detained, many children shoved and yelled at and threats of arrest from the Israeli military.

	Tensions escalate at protest

The protest included 35 children, two of them in wheelchairs. The protesters became agitated and gathered around the soldiers as they installed the turnstile. Soon the number of soldiers grew to sixteen. As tension increased, four armored Israeli police vehicles arrived with fourteen police. Adult Palestinian men engaged the police in heated conversation.

Israeli soldiers grabbed a Palestinian man, approximately twenty years old, and shoved him against an Israeli vehicle. They then turned him over to police. This happened without any physical provocation from the young Palestinian. The police put him into their vehicle where they detained him for 25 minutes.

Turnstile at checkpoint 60 in Al-Khalil

During that time an additional fifteen soldiers arrived. The soldiers and police threatened to arrest others if they did not leave. They then divided the crowd, pushing them in opposite directions.

On and off throughout the event, Palestinian children as young as six years old moved up against the soldiers. The soldiers responded by physically grabbing, pushing and yelling at the children.

Once the soldiers divided the crowd and threatened to arrest anyone staying in the area, the Palestinians slowly dispersed.