CPTnet
8 April 2008
HEBRON UPDATE: 8-15 March 2008

On team during this period were Art Arbour, Jan Benvie, Jean Fallon, Lorne Friesen, Jessica Frederick, JoAnne Lingle, Sarah MacDonald, Dianne Roe, and Mary Wendeln.


Saturday 08 March
Some of the schools in Hebron were open, to make up for a day lost earlier in the year because of heavy snowfall. In the old city, Al Fayha’a was open. The head-teacher of Al Ibrahimiyye School told CPTers he would not open the school for fear of attacks on the Palestinian children from settler children, which often happen on Saturdays.

Members of the delegation joined the team for school patrol. When Benvie, Frederick, and one of the delegates were on Shuhada Street, a young settler boy approached them. As the boy stepped towards the male delegate, Frederick stepped in the way (hoping that the boy would be reluctant to touch a woman.) The boy paused for a moment, and then kicked Frederick in the leg. An Israeli soldier stood close by and watched. Benvie repeated to the soldier that the boy kicked Frederick. The soldier ignored her and smiled at the boy, who went to stand beside the soldier, saying “Shabbat Shalom.” The boy picked up a stone and threw it towards Benvie, who was able to move out of the way. The soldier did nothing.


Sunday 09 March
The delegates stayed overnight with families in Beit Ummar and Beqa’a. One of the families in Beit Ummar told the delegates about his sixteen-year-old son, whom the Israeli soldiers shot the previous week, with a fragmenting bullet. Another Palestinian told about his fourteen-year-old nephew whose leg was amputated after Israeli soldiers shot him with fragmenting bullets.


Monday 10 March
Frederick went to the police station in Jerusalem to seek out a police report for a Palestinian family in Beit Ummar. The father had been injured in a car accident in September 2007. His lawyer gave him a paper stating that he must collect the police report in person from Jerusalem before he could claim compensation. As a Palestinian resident of the West Bank, he needs a permit from the Israeli authorities to travel to Jerusalem. He was twice refused a permit to travel to there. Frederick reiterated that the man could not obtain a travel permit. The police officer replied, “He must try harder, he is not the only one in the Occupied Territories.”


Tuesday 11 March
A film crew from Germany joined the team for morning school patrol. They went with Benvie and Frederick to pick up Hani, a Palestinian boy in a wheelchair, on his way to school and filmed the barrier that blocks his travel to school. Two women from Machsoum Watch (an Israeli women’s group that monitors the Israeli checkpoints in the Palestinian Territories) arrived at the Yatta Road checkpoint.

On patrol at Wadi al Nasera, Benvie and Frederick noted that things were quiet, with no settlers in sight. The CPTers then walked up past the occupied house. Four young Israeli settler boys were in the street. Two young Palestinian men walked by and the settler boys threw and kicked plastic bottles at the men, hitting them in the legs. Benvie spoke with an Israeli soldier who was standing watching and asked him why he did nothing about the boys harassing the men. The soldier said, “They are only playing.”

The delegation, along with Arbour, Fallon, Roe, and Wendeln went to the Israeli settlement of Efrat to sit shiva (pay their respects after a death, in the Jewish tradition) with a Jewish woman whose son Palestinian militants had killed in a Jerusalem Yeshiva on 6 March 2008. The woman has often welcomed CPT delegations to her house.


Wednesday 12 March
No school patrol took place, because the teachers were on strike.

Lingle met with a young Palestinian man from Tsurif, a village west of Beit Ummar. He talked about the travel difficulties he and other villagers experience. The Israeli military frequently sets up ‘flying checkpoints’ (where military jeeps park on roads and the soldiers stop Palestinian vehicles for ID checks) on the road he takes to school. A fourth year student at Hebron University, majoring in English, he is frequently late for classes because of the checkpoints.

Thursday 13 March
A former CPT delegate, and a group of six other Christians stayed overnight in Hebron. They are doing a prayer walk through Israel and Palestine, beginning in the Golan Heights and ending at the Israel/Egyptian boarder.


Friday 14 March
Wendeln and Lingle participated in a demonstration at Al Khader. The Israeli soldiers were wearing gas mask, which indicated that they had planned for a confrontation. So instead of an undertaking an action, the Palestinians said prayers and left. While they were there, the CPTers met a journalist, Seth Freeman, from the Guardian. Freeman wrote an article about international activists in Palestine and referred to the conversation he had with Wendeln and Lingle. (See his column, “Not just visiting: Israel's supporters welcome support from Christian Zionists - but overseas intervention in the conflict cuts both ways” <http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/seth_freedman/2008/03/not_just_visiting.html>

Frederick and Friesen went to Issa Amro’s house in Tel Rumeida to participate in a tree planting action to honor of the people of Gaza and Rachel Corrie (a young U.S. woman crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza five years ago).

Israeli border police detained men at the Ibrahimi mosque checkpoint after prayers, most for twenty minutes, and three for fifty minutes.

Around 8:00 p.m., Arbour, Friesen, Roe and Wendeln, returning from a social event, observed six Israeli soldiers detaining two young Palestinian men near the Beit Romano checkpoint. When Roe asked a soldier what they were doing he replied, “We are checking the documents of terrorists.” Wendeln responded, “Excuse me! What did you say?” to which the soldier said “On Friday we check the documents of those out at night.” When questioned by Roe, the soldier said they would only take five minutes. The CPTers indicated that they would wait five minutes with the men. The soldiers quickly returned the Palestinian men’s IDs. The Palestinian men thanked the CPTers.