At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills, Palestine-On Wednesday, 25 November 2009, the Israeli military and Border police confiscated two electricity pylons standing at the entrance to the village of At-Tuwani.  The villagers had installed the pylons in an effort to connect to the electrical grid in Yatta, a Palestinian city to the north.  The Israeli military declared the area around the pylons a closed military zone in an attempt to prevent Palestinians and CPTers from obstructing or documenting the confiscation.  When two CPTers continued to film, Border Police slammed them against a military jeep and threatened them with arrest.  Nonetheless, dozens of villagers formed a barricade to prevent a police jeep from further entering the village.

The city of Halabja is in northeast Iraq, fifteen km from the Iranian border.  It became infamous for Saddam Hussein's gassing of its citizens as part of the Anfal Campaign that killed 100,000 Kurds during 1987-88.  Mr. Aris Agram from the Halabja Monument Association told CPT his personal story of loss and survival.

Early in 1988, in the final year of the Iran-Iraq war, Iran's troops invaded and occupied Halabja, supported by the Kurdish militia.  In response, Iraq began bombing the area.  From 13-15 March, there was heavy fighting in the city.  Casualties streamed to the hospital, which ran out of medications.  Then came 16 March 1988.  The Iraqi military dropped cluster bombs across the city, killing many children and the mothers accompanying them home from school.  They also dropped bombs with white phosphorus that eats through flesh down to the bone.  Then they dropped 500-pound bombs, which can blast craters twenty feet deep, and killed more people huddled in their home made bomb shelters.  Finally, they dropped the poison gas bombs that instantly killed 5,000 people-90% of those remaining in the city, mostly children, the elderly, or the injured who had not been able to flee.  Another 7,000 in the region were injured and many died later from the long-term effects of the gas, probably a cocktail of cyanide, mustard gas, VX, and Tabin-ingredients sold to Iraq by the U.S.A. and countries in Asia and Europe

A local partner and longtime friend recently invited us to document the damage caused by the confiscation of water pipes and the trampling of his crops. The Israeli military said the family was stealing water.  The truth is that the water he was accused of stealing comes from West Bank aquifers, and thus, should belong to the Palestinian community.

From 6-24 November 2009, a letter calling for change in U.S. policy towards Colombia will be circulating through the House of Representatives.  The CPT Colombia team asks that members of its U.S. constituency take action to protect human rights in Colombia by contacting their representatives to support the letter before it is sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  The letter needs the support of at least seventy members of Congress to be effective.

Harmeet Singh Sooden has joined the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) delegation traveling through Iraqi Kurdistan 7-23 November 2009.  This delegation marks the first time he has returned to Iraq since he was freed from captivity four years ago. 

On Tuesday, 17 November 2009, in the South Hebron Hills of the West Bank, five Israeli settlers harassed a Palestinian family walking home, then beat and robbed two Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) members who were accompanying them.

The two young parents and their three small children were returning from the nearby city of Yatta to their home village of Tuba. At 11:00 a.m., they encountered CPTers just south of the village of At-Tuwani. After the CPTers warned the Palestinians about the settlers seen earlier in the morning, the family chose a longer path toward Tuba, accompanied by the CPTers.

As the group crossed Mashakha Hill, they saw four settler men on a ridge fifty meters above them. The settlers ran toward the Palestinians and began to circle them. A fifth settler, masked and hooded, appeared from the valley below. When the Palestinian man told them he was only trying to walk home, a settler shoved him.