Hebron is a sacred place because of the cave/tomb of Abraham and Sarah, Rebecca and Isaac, Jacob and Leah.  Today Hebron feels entombed by the Israeli military occupation and colonization.  It is a Holy Saturday that has lasted over forty-five years.  No resurrection in sight—but somehow the winter of all hopes and dreams bears the seeds of a, maybe far off, spring of justice and freedom.  I offer two stories of occupation: one of oppression, one of hope.

 Since publication of the CPT report, Under Attack: Golani Brigade's war on the Palestinian population of Al-Khalil (Hebron), the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade has threatened CPTers with arrest and death several times.  The report documents the recent escalation of human rights abuses in Al Khalil.  These threats are an attempt to prevent CPT and other international organizations from continuing to document ongoing human rights abuses, including violence and harassment, committed by soldiers against the civilian population of Al-Khalil.

According to International law and Israeli law, international observers have the right to document the actions of soldiers unless their presence interferes directly with the military’s duties.  Members of CPT have told soldiers that they are present in Al-Khalil merely to document soldiers’ actions, but have been told by soldiers that they are subject to arrest whenever they attempt to follow military patrols through residential areas, film, or remain present during searches or interrogations of civilians.  Twice in recent weeks, soldiers threatened to shoot or kill a CPT member.  In multiple instances, soldiers used the threat of arrest to prevent CPTers from observing and documenting incidents that included the detention or intimidation of children.

 On 23 February 2012, Khader Adnan broke his sixty-six day hunger strike after reaching a deal with Israel's Justice Ministry.  Soldiers had arrested Adnan on 13 December and Israel had ordered him detained for four months but never charged him with a crime.  The next day, he declared a hunger strike to protest Israel’s policy of administrative detention.  As people involved with the campaign calling for the release of Adnan told us, he was “dying to live.”

On 25 January 2012, CPT Palestine was officially accepted as a member of the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) for Palestine, which operates under the auspices of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Beyond serving as a venue for processing large donations, CAP allows for organizations supporting Palestinians’ right to life, liberty, and freedom to coordinate effective advocacy strategies.

The process also allows groups to share information about the various issues that arise from the Israeli military occupation of Palestine and disturbing trends in all parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

With CPT’s participation in the appeal, CPTers will also be able to expand the communication of their experiences to a wider international audience and participate in targeted lobbying efforts.

Examples of other organizations who have participated in the Consolidated Appeals Process include Church World Service, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Samaritan’s Purse, Save the Children, and Unicef.

To learn more about the appeal see
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ochaopt_cap_2012_full_document_english.pdf

A newly released report submitted to the United Nations by international organizations working in Al Khalil documents a sharp increase in serious human rights violations against Palestinian civilians, particularly youth and children, living in the Old City and Tel Rumeida since the arrival of the Golani Brigade of the Israeli army on 27 December 2011.

Early on the morning of 8 February 2012, more than twenty Israeli soldiers and Border Police broke into at least thirty homes in the Al-Khalil (Hebron)’s Old City.  The soldiers, many of whom are part of a unit of the Golani Brigade, used rifles, boots, and pry bars to break in doors and destroy locks.  Soldiers ransacked more than a dozen houses, ordered families outside into the night, damaged and destroyed property and verbally and physically harassed families who were asleep in their homes when the raid began.  Soldiers also broke down the door of the Ministry of Labor, which was empty in the early morning hours.

Hebron’s Old City has one main street.  It connects the Ibrahimi Mosque to Bab il Balideyya, an open square next to the Beit Romano settlement and military base.  Along this cobblestone road, narrower streets branch off, meandering deeper into the Old City, intersecting with other less trafficked alleys.  At night, the Old City is dark, with only the main road lit, and there, only in scattered places.

Undeterred by heavily armed border police at the Qitoun checkpoint that CPTers monitor because schoolchildren and teachers must walk through it, the teenager who sells ka'ak (a chewy sesame bread) argues with soldiers every morning until they finally unlock the gate to the checkpoint and let him and his cart through. On Martin Luther King Day, however, they were ignoring him, so he finally walked back over to the gate, picked up a rock, broke the padlock, and pushed his cart through. The Border Police pushed him back and locked the gate. Another day, another time, they could have beaten him up or arrested him as has happened many times to young men his age in Hebron, and he must have known that, but he was literally determined to go about his business.

On the night of 11 January 2012, the Israeli military demolished the outpost settlement that overlooks the neighborhood of al-Bowereh on the northeastern edge of al-Khalil/Hebron. Often in the past, when the Israeli military has demolished outposts (including this particular outpost), settlers have attacked Palestinian civilians, their homes, and animals in what Israelis refer to as “price tag” attacks.  In recent months, settlers have also attacked Israeli soldiers tasked with carrying out the dismantling of outpost settlements, the building of which is illegal under both Israeli and international law.

On 12 January 2012 at 5:20pm, Israeli soldiers forcibly entered the Zaru family home near the Qitoun checkpoint in al-Khalil (Hebron), assaulting the mother and two sons. The invasion was a result of an earlier encounter between the soldiers and Anas, the older of the sons, age 18 and developmentally disabled. That morning, Anas was coming home through the Qitoun checkpoint after refilling the cooking gas tank for the household. When he tried to enter the door of the checkpoint corridor, the soldiers closed it. He knocked repeatedly on the door until the soldiers shouted at him, “Why are you knocking?”