CPTnet
January 4, 2004

AT-TUWANI: Armed Israeli settler attempts to prevent children from
attending school

by Cal Carpenter

On January 2, an armed Israeli settler attempted to prevent children of Tuba
village from attending school in At-Tuwani. The incident happened while
children from Tuba were walking from their village to the point where they
normally meet with an Israeli military escort on their way to school in the
morning.

  On this morning, an armed settler stood in their path and threatened them.
The children yelled to the soldiers who were to be their escort and then ran
back towards their village. Members of Christian
Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and Operation Dove (OD), who are based in At-Tuwani,
were monitoring the children's progress from a hilltop across the valley.
They ran down to meet the children. The internationals were joined by the
father and older brother of some of the children, and the whole group
began again to walk to the military jeep that would escort the children to
school.

 At the top of a hill near the place where the jeep was waiting, the adults
stopped, because Israeli military has forbidden them (and the
internationals) be on the path the children take. As the children walked
through the valley, the settler threatened them again and they began to run
back to the adults. At this point, the adults came down a little way into
the valley, and three of the soldiers from the escort got out of their jeep
and began walking toward the children. The children's father encouraged the
them to go to the soldiers.

While the soldiers escorted the children along the path, other settlers,
standing among the trees near the Havot Ma'on outpost, shouted at them and
threatened them. Three settlers with a dog also followed the internationals
and adults part of the way back to Tuba shouting threats.

The harassment on January 2 was only the most recent in a series of violent
incidents which have involved settlers menacing the schoolchildren of Tuba.
Regular Israeli military escorts to protect the children began in October
2004.