Monday 11 August
Lynes led a group of tourists from Bethlehem to Tel Rumeida.  On their way back, all the visitors had to produce their passports at two checkpoints.

Lynes and a visiting Israeli student went to Wadi Nasara.  They observed that the two “outpost” tents had been removed.  Young settlers attacked them, hitting Lynes with two pellets from an air gun and head-butting the Israeli visitor repeatedly until he bled profusely from his mouth. 

Friday 15 August
Abuata, McNeill and a visitor went to Wadi Nasara at about 4:00 p.m.  They visited an old man and his son who lived across the road from where the settler youth had been camping out.  The old man said he felt helpless in the face of the settler violence and began crying.

After leaving the house, the three watched the road and the settler camp, where two teenage settlers were sitting.  Many Palestinians walked beside the road rather than on it because they were afraid of the settlers.  After about ten minutes, a third settler came down from Kiryat Arba and chased a group of children who were standing near Palestinian homes across the street.  When McNeill, Abuata and an intern approached to start filming, the two teenagers blocked their path and told them not to pass.  One tried to kick the camera out of McNeill’s hands, nearly hitting her face.  Abuata called the Kiryat Arba police, and after a couple of minutes all three settlers walked away.  New settler youth arrived at the camp; the police never came.

by Garland Roberts

At an evening gathering to say goodbye to one of the CPT Iraq team members, I visited with Rajal.  He is about twenty-five-years old and works as a technician with a U.S. university here in Suleimaniya.  At the party, he told us about his recent drive to Baghdad, where he visited his old neighborhood—his first trip back since he and his parents had relocated to Suleimaniya in mid-2006.

He was shocked by how the mood of the city had changed.  He already knew of the terribly distressing experiences the residents were forced to endure in 2007, how each new day revealed more bodies lying in the streets.  The bloating corpses and foul stench were evidences of brutal, sustained violence.

Now the city is quiet.  He believes it is safe from random attacks and intrusive searches.  However, only about three of the twenty families who had lived before in his neighborhood are still there.  New groups are living in their houses, in his house.  The behavior of the people is more austere.  They seem fatigued and depressed....