CPTnet

17 August 2009

AL-KHALIIL/HEBRON: June 2009

On team during this period were John Harris, Aida Hayes, Donna Hicks, Maureen Jack, Barbara Martens, and Paulette Schroeder.

General Situation
Regular military patrols, detentions at checkpoints, sporadic soldier and Border Police harassment, and attacks on Palestinians continued through the month of July.  The Israeli military replaced plastic barriers with more solid barriers in the Israeli-controlled H2 area of Al-Khaliil, further restricting movements of local Palestinians and separating walking routes for Palestinians and settlers.  A solid cement wall has replaced heavy stacked barrels in one barrier on Shuhada Street.

During July, CPT hosted at 26-30 international groups of various sizes, which were interested in CPT work and in better knowing the situation of the conflict in Palestine.  For two weeks of this month, John Harris led a delegation of his friends from Pentecostals for Peace and Justice.

Settler Activity

Saturday 4 July
Sixty to seventy teenage male settlers came through the Old City on a late Saturday afternoon settler tour.  While the group walked into the Old City, the soldiers stopped Palestinians from coming through.  Later, CPTers took a call from a shopkeeper who said these settlers had vandalized her husband's car in the square near the men's coffee shop.  The rear wiper blade had been snapped off; there was a crack in the offside rear light, and the logo on the front of the car had been snapped off.  "I love you Israel" and the Star of David had been written in the dust on the rear window.

Saturday 11 July
One of the local settlers helping with the regular Saturday afternoon settler tour in the Old City tried several times to convince the soldiers that CPT had connections with Hamas. 

Tuesday 14 July
While Jack had a conversation with a woman from Machsom Watch she noticed that Israeli cars were beginning to block in the Machsom Watch van where it was parked.  Jack stood in between one car and the MW van as the car reversed, but she moved aside when the car did not stop.  One of the Israeli Border Police
also noticed what had happened and told the car driver to move the car, which he did.

Friday 17 July 
At approximately 6:00 p.m., as Schroeder approached the CPT apartment, she eyed four young settler men climbing over the wall to the Muslim cemetery on Shuhada Street.  For a few moments, she watched as an Israeli soldier hugged the youth coming over.  The young men sat on the tombstone nearest the wall eating watermelon, laughing, and joking together. Schroeder alerted the soldiers on the nearby roof, but they did nothing to stop this disrespectful activity in a Muslim cemetery.

Saturday 18 July
One settler told Jack and her colleagues who following the settler tour through the Old City,  "You are worse than Germans."  This happened near the section of the Old City where vandals had painted swastikas on the wall.  Several settlers tried to engage in conversation with Jack during this tour.

Wednesday 29 July
Hicks and Schroeder photographed the painting project that the settlers had carried out on 28 July.  They had painted a hopscotch game on Shuhada Street and cartoon characters on nearby shop doors.  On the cement slabs that block off the alley—in which the CPT apartment is located—from Shuhada Street, they had artistically splattered bright paint colors.  One Palestinian shopkeeper remarked,  â€œBetter that they teach their children to play than to throw stones."

Thursday 30 July
Early in the afternoon, two settler youth from Beit Hadassah harassed visiting Jews at a Palestinian shop and urged them not to buy from Palestinians. One of the Border Police tried to separate the youth from the shop area and eventually succeeded, after much more shouting back and forth. 

Soldier and Border Police Activity

Tuesday 14 July
During the afternoon Hicks, then Jack, received phone calls from Radio Palestine, alerting CPT there had been a settler attack on a Palestinian boy, and that the soldiers had stood by and done nothing.  The boy was the sixteen-year-old old son of a good friend to CPT. CPTers visited the father, who recounted the story, and his son on the day after the attack.  The boy had been carrying electrical cables for repair work back to his home along with two workers.  In the attack, the soldiers told the two workers to go but held the boy.  Two soldiers began to beat the boy while two others tried to stop them.  Settlers gathered around.  Finally, the family arrived at the scene, called the police, and documented the action with a camera.  The father demanded to talk with the commander, who was not there, and at this point, someone called TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron).  When more Palestinians arrived, the settlers ran away.  Meanwhile the boy had been handcuffed with his hands behind his back, blindfolded, kicked, hit with the soldiers' guns, and had his cell phone SIM card confiscated.  A soldier told the boy, "If you say anything to the media, I will kill you."  The boy later commented,  "I am proud of myself that I am nonviolent.  The officer was more scared than I was."

Tuesday 21 July
Israeli soldiers appeared on the patio while the team was holding a meeting.  The soldiers mentioned that children had been throwing stones from the team’s roof to their roof.  CPTers asked the soldiers to leave their weapons downstairs while they checked things out.  After checking up around the women's apartment, the soldiers left.

Wednesday 22 July
A good friend of CPT arrived at the apartment to show the team demolition orders on his terraces he had received from the Israeli authorities.  He must evacuate the land in forty-five days.  If he does not do so, the Israeli authorities will bulldoze the terraces and require him to pay the expenses.  The document notes that he has a right of appeal to the military appeals court.  He also has a right to clarify the details at the Office of Inspection at the DCO Hebron office.

Tuesday 28 July
 around 7:00 p.m., a CPT neighbor called to say that Border Police in the Old City were detaining some Palestinian men.  After releasing some of the men, they arrived at a shop where they spoke rudely to Harris and Hicks.  Next, the Border Police turned toward the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee (HRC), stopped a taxi, lined the driver and passengers up against a wall, and took their IDs.  They ordered the driver to open the trunk and all the doors.  Before they had finished, they stopped and searched another driver, a large van, and a couple more cars and passengers that exited the HRC parking lot.

Comments and Direction Given to CPT from its Palestinian Advisory Council

Sunday 26 July
The Advisory Council had its third meeting.  The Council appointed a committee to advance the Solidarity and Academic Exchange Program.  They also enlisted Council Members to go with CPTers into high-risk areas in H2 and H1 (the nominally Palestinian controlled area of Hebron).  One Council member offered to set up a meeting with the headmasters of Ibrahimi Boys' School and Fateyah Girl's School.  The council members told CPTers that they needed to be highly visible on the streets and continue building strong relationships with neighbors.