CPTnet
October 12, 2004

HEBRON UPDATE: September 13-19, 2004

Monday September 13
No curfew.

CPTers Christina Gibb, Char Smith, and John Lynes joined a demonstration in
Ar-Ram. The route of Israel's "Security Barrier/Apartheid Wall" in that
area is disrupting the ability of children to get to school, so the
demonstration had as its theme "LET US LEARN." About 1,000 school children
took part in the demonstration along with many others. During the march,
the CPTers helped to direct some of the straggling children away from
confrontations with the soldiers. After the march finished, some of the boys
started throwing stones and the CPTers were unsuccessful in discouraging
them. Eventually the stone throwing provoked Israeli soldiers into using
percussion grenades to disperse the boys.

Tuesday September 14
No curfew

Cal Carpenter, Kim Lamberty, and Smith spent the afternoon visiting with the
Jaber families in the Beqa'a valley. As well as having an enjoyable visit,
the group delivered some peace banners from a US synagogue and got a chance
to see the family's fields.

Gibb and Lynes photographed a bulldozer piling rubbish at the end of the
street where the CPT apartment is located. They also did a patrol of the
Old City and spent some time observing soldiers detaining a young man near
the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Wednesday September 15
No curfew

The team began a more intentional checkpoint watch at Beit Romano. Smith and
Lynes spent two hours in the early afternoon observing the checkpoint and
recording how many people passed and how many of them soldiers stopped
searched or detained. About an hour into the survey, the soldiers demanded
that they leave. They moved back but stayed and continued recording. At one
point, soldiers detained two women and Smith went to sit with them until
they were released.

In the afternoon Carpenter and Lamberty took a walk in the area of the
Mosque to see what the situation was like, because many visitors were
beginning to arrive for the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. They saw more
soldiers and Border Police there than usual and that the streets were quiet.
Returning to the apartment, they were detained by soldiers at the checkpoint
near Avraham Avinu settlement who told them they must wait for five minutes
because soldiers were conducting a military exercise in the Old City.
Lamberty tried engage the soldier in a discussion of how checkpoints violate
human rights and he acted as though he did not understand English. After a
while, Lamberty and Carpenter left and took another route back to the
apartment.

Thursday September 16
Rosh Hashanah

Lamberty and Lynes walked the route called "Worshipers Way" by settlers to
mark the holy day. Soldiers prevented them from entering the synagogue at
the Ibrahimi mosque and the Jabal Johar neighborhood.

Friday September 17
Curfew in Mosque area of H2

Gibb and Smith undertook the Beit Romano checkpoint watch and observed many
men and boys going to and from the mosque.

Carpenter took three visiting International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
activists to patrol the area near Kiryat Arba to see what the situation
there was like with all the holiday visitors in town. They saw some settlers
out for a walk in the Palestinian neighborhood and a few Israeli military
vehicles, but no negative incidents occurred. They walked as far as Wadi
Ghroos and Jabal Johar to show the ISMers the east side of Hebron.

Saturday September 18
Curfew in Mosque are of H2

When Carpenter and Bourke Kennedy arrived to do the Beit Romano checkpoint
watch someone told them that soldiers had shot and injured a man carrying
that morning.

In the afternoon, several members of the team attended a meeting with the
ISM group in Hebron. On the way to the ISM house in the Abu Sneineh
neighborhood Israeli soldiers turned the group back at the checkpoint near
the Avraham Avinu settlement because of curfew in the Shuhada street area.

Sunday September 19
Curfew