CPT Hebron

February 1995 - September 2003

February-March 1995
Wendy Lehman and Kathleen Kern go on a fact finding tour of the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, talking to Palestinians, Israelis and internationals who are working for human rights and for peace. They make several trips down to Hebron. After they talk to the Public Relations Director of the Hebron municipality about CPT's work in Haiti, she tells them that such a team is exactly what Hebron needs.

April 1995
The Hebron Municipality issues an invitation to Christian Peacemaker Teams and the Steering Committee votes to approve sending a team of four.

June 1995
The first Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron (Jeff Heie, Cliff Kindy, Kathleen Kern and Wendy Lehman) set up the project. They spend the first weeks visiting and living with numerous families in the area. Palestinian journalists then help them find an apartment around the corner from their office.

Three Palestinian houses are destroyed by the IDF -- one because they found wanted fugitives inside and two because the IDF shot down a fugitive fifty meters from the homes. Christian Peacemaker Teams helps rebuild houses.

July 1995
Cliff Kindy and Jeff Heie are detained for nine hours while accompanying a water tank truck sent by the city government to fill the cistern belonging to the Abu Haikel family. The municipality had stopped delivering water to people who lived near Israeli settlements because Israeli settlers had broken the windshield of the water truck too many times. As a result of the detention, international attention is drawn to the CPT project in Hebron, and the Israeli public demands an investigation into why there is a water shortage in Hebron when the settlements around Hebron have plenty. The arrests also bring CPT into contact with the Society of St. Yves, which offers free legal help to the team and eventually represents several families in Hebron.

CPT receives an invitation from people connected with the University of Hebron to open a gate which had been sealed shut since the beginning of the Intifada. The University is nowhere near a settlement or military checkpoint administrators, teachers and faculty point out, so the only reason to keep the gate sealed is, in their opinion, harassment (the military later explain that it is to "protect" the University from settler attacks). Three members of the team, Cliff Kindy, Kathy Kamphoefner, and Wendy Lehman are arrested and released two days later. The entrance is resealed nine days later.

On July 22, the same day of the university action, CPT begins a Saturday afternoon presence on Duboya Street, which runs between the settlements of Beit Hadassah and Tel Rumeida. The previous Saturday some teenage Hebron settlers went on a rampage in the street, injuring several Palestinian children -- one by jumping on a boy's leg until it broke. CPTers continue this Saturday presence until March of 1996.

August 1995
The team spends much of the month visiting and increasing their visibility on Duboya Street. They becomes particularly involved with the family of Shakir Da'na, whose house is stoned three-four times a week by his neighbors: settlers in Kiryat Arba. Work includes talking with Israeli police and the military, and connecting Shakir with Israeli legal help and journalists. The team proposes that they spend a night on Shakir's roof or on the hillside inside Kiryat Arba from where the stones are usually thrown, but Shakir refuses to allow the team to put themselves at risk in this way.

September 1995
On the first day of classes, settlers charge the Palestinian Qurtuba girls school on Duboya Street after the raising of the Palestinian flag, and begin what becomes an ongoing struggle. CPT members begin a daily presence at the school, but withdraw at the request of the headmistress who fears exacerbating the situation. They do, however, continue to accompany children on their way home from school past the nearby settlements and maintain a visible presence nearby.

On Saturday, September 30, while Kathleen Kern and Wendy Lehman are on Duboya Street, they are attacked by a group of approximately twenty men, knocked to the ground, spit on and stomped upon. They steal Kern's camera and break all the car windows on the street. After Rabin's assassination, the team finds out that Yigal Amir (the convicted assassin) and his brother Haggai were among the men participating in the rampage.

October 1995
The team moves from an apartment near the municipal offices into another in the center of the old city, in order to be closer to the settlements and the "thick of things".

Settler activity steps up specifically in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood. Team members document stone throwing and ongoing harassment and begin to accompany a young Palestinian girl who has been the target of settler children on her way home from school.

On Oct. 26, CPTers are walking in the city center around 9 pm when they observe settler youth spraying graffiti on the doors of Palestinian-owned shops while adult settlers cheer them on. As the crowd proceeds down the street chanting and spray-painting, Israeli border police watch the vandalism -- some officers standing two to three feet away from the spray painting youth and failing to respond. The settlers, led by Miriam Levinger, shout at the CPT team to go away. Levinger screams obscenities at the team, calling them "harlots." CPTer Dianne Roe is hit in the face with an egg and Wendy Lehman is hit in the head. Another settler spits on team member Carmen Pauls from a distance of six inches. When the CPTers leave with the police to make a complaint at about 12 am, the crowd cheers.

CPTers asked an investigating officer at the police station why the Israeli border police and soldiers allowed the vandalism to continue unabated. The officer, who asked to remain anonymous, tells them, "The police take orders from the commander, who takes orders from the Minister of Police, who takes orders from the Prime Minister, who takes orders from the settler.

November 1995
The Michigan Faith and Resistance group joins the project for the month, adding five more persons to the team, and allowing for much more interaction with families.

On the day that Prime Minister Rabin is assassinated, team member Dianne Roe is knocked to the ground and kicked by teenage Israeli boys. When a Palestinian teenage girl tries to help her, she is also knocked down and dragged along the ground by her hair. (Later this girl and her sister become Roe's Arabic teachers.)

After the assassination (Nov. 4), things quiet down somewhat for a time -- the team notices the military begin to enforce the house arrests of Hebron settlers who had been sentenced by the Israeli courts for acts of violence. It also seems as though the police begin to take complaints by Palestinians regarding settler harassment and attacks more seriously.

December 1995
Team members celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem -- the first Christmas after the Israel Defense Forces turn Bethlehem over to the Palestinian Authority.

January 1996
Art Gish is arrested and Cliff Kindy and Cole Hull detained as they participate with local Palestinian merchants in a spontaneous effort to take down the gates that the military use to seal the city's main market shut (and which make the passage of produce extremely difficult.) Gish is released after 48 hours.

Six families (mostly Russian Jews) are evicted from Ashmoret settlement, on the outskirts of Hebron, after violating court orders and moving into homes illegally built on Palestinian land. Although the families were unhappy with the evictions, it was instructive to note the care in moving the families, including a chartered bus, and moving trucks with boxes; in contrast to the complete demolition of Palestinian homes built without permits less than a mile from the same point. The Ashmoret homes have since been taken over by the Israeli Border Police as a barracks and command center.

Hundreds of Israelis flood the streets of Hebron to protest on the day of the first ever Palestinian elections. Several of CPT's friends and acquaintances are attacked by settlers. One settler girl is stabbed, and chaos and several arrests follow. Two CPT members are temporarily detained.

Team members document the destruction of caves used by Bedouin families for generations, simply due to their proximity to an expanding settlement.

February 1996
The team sets up a symbolic "Oslo II" tomato stand in the Hebron vegetable market, which had been closed after settler Baruch Goldstein killed 29 men and boys as they prayed in the Il Ibrahimi Mosque (and was scheduled to be open no later than January 1996, according to the Oslo Accords.) They sell all their tomatoes at a profit in spite of the military trying to close them down.

Buses are bombed in Jerusalem and Ashkelon. Over sixty people die. Three days later, team members climb on the roof of a house in a vain attempt to keep it from being destroyed. Six houses lying between the settlements of Kiryat Arba and Givat Ha Harsina are destroyed that day for having been built without permit (Palestinians living near settlements are not permitted to build on their own land, which leads to impossible over-crowding.) Several other homes are saved by the organizing, delaying tactics and press coverage which results in the intervention of then-president Shimon Peres. Robert Naiman and Dianne Roe are arrested after they follow a young man whom the police have taken away. Although they are threatened with deportation, following a massive fax campaign, the police do not show up for their deportation hearing.

March 1996
After three days in jail and four under house arrest, Roe and Naiman appear before a court in Jerusalem. The police do not show up to present their case, so the two are released without restrictions.

The #18 bus in Jerusalem is blown up by a suicide bomber exactly one week after a suicide bomber blows up the first #18 bus in Jerusalem. The following Sunday, team members ride the #18 bus in Jerusalem from 6 to 9 am, alerting Arab, Israeli and international contacts and press before they do so. The morning passes safely.

The team, along with Israeli and international activists, bring food to the Al-Fawar UN refugee camp, which had been under complete closure for over two weeks in the wake of the bombings. Part of the group sneak into the camp past roadblocks to talk with families inside. After several hours in a standoff with the IDF, the food is allowed to be transferred inside to eager residents. The closure is ultimately eased after the media event destruction of 2 homes belonging to families of the suicide bombing suspects.

Defense for Children International office in Hebron is ransacked, and an ongoing relationship with their staff and their work with refugee, imprisoned, and victimized children is established

April 1996
CPT holds a "teach-in" in front of Hebron University, which remains closed after the bombings in February and March as a form of collective punishment (none of the students, university or staff were found to be connected in any way with the bombings.) Approximately 25 students come to discuss nonviolent strategies for social change in English.

After a student sit-in is violently broken up (seven students are arrested and later beaten in prison), the students ask CPT to accompany them in another peaceful walk from the Hebron municipal offices to the university campus. At a certain point, student leaders encourage the students to turn back to avoid confrontation with the gathered military. Soldiers nevertheless attempt to arrest one of the leaders who is urging the students to turn back. Team members and Palestinian bystanders are able to intervene and give the boy a chance to escape.

CPT members are invited by Hebron University professor Musallem Shreateh to cut a fence that settlers from nearby Susia have illegally put around his field. Team members leave a note explaining who they are and why they did this.

The team learns that 60 Palestinian houses in the vicinity of Kiryat Arba and Givat Ha Harsina settlements are scheduled for demolition. They invite members of the Rehovot Peace Now group to come to Hebron and visit the families whose homes are scheduled to be demolished. After many hours of phone conversations and networking, team members learn that Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres had told PLO President Yasser Arafat the houses would not be destroyed. International faxes and e-mail in response to CPT and Peace Now urgent actions alerts play an important role in calling off the house demolitions.

May 1996
CPTers accompany Shreateh and his extended family to their fields as they harvest their wheat. They witness harassment of the family, including death threats from armed settlers.

At the end of the month, Shreateh again invites the team to his field -- this time to dig up olive trees that settlers from Susia have planted there, making it impossible for him to cultivate his field. As Team members begin the process of transplanting the trees from Shreateh's field onto settlement property, they are they are detained by the IDF, then attacked by armed settlers while soldiers watch. The police arrive and arrest all four team members: Randy Bond, Wendy Lehman, Tom Malthaner, and Bob Naiman. The four remain in prison for three days (Malthaner for four days) and are released on the condition that they not return to Hebron.

June 1996
After consulting with Palestinian, Israeli and expatriate friends, as well as legal support, the Team decides to return to Hebron. They write an open letter to the police stating their reason for returning, questioning of the validity of some untranslated court and police documents, and challenging the authority of the Israeli military to bar peace activists from Hebron. Mayor Mustafa Natsche writes a letter to the authorities stating that he had originally invited the team and wishes them to continue their work in Hebron.

July 1996
Two team members spend three days in the village of Samua, which was placed under curfew after Palestinian teenagers set fire to bulldozers which were tearing up confiscated farmland for a new settler bypass road. Water and electricity were also shut off.

Representatives of Peace Now and Rabbis for Human Rights come to meet Musallem Shreateh and see what they can do to help. They view his documents but the Peace Now delegation is unwilling to act unless they can be assured that the army has not confiscated Shreateh's land since the time of the documents. The following week CPT visits with Shreateh to discuss the issue further, telling him that they are still willing to accompany him during further cultivation of his fields, but need at least one week's notice.

On July 30 Shreateh tells CPT that he needs to plant his land in 25 days. He wants to see if Susia residents will remove the trees themselves.

On July 31 Rabbis for Human Rights visit and express an interest in helping Shreateh, who hoped that they can help him resolve the issue by arranging for a discussion with Susia settlers.

August 1996
Team members visit the Al-Mutoor family just north of Hebron shortly after the IDF destroyed their house. The family indicates they had been given no advance warning. An IDF spokesperson says that the house had been destroyed to make room for a bypass road (and was one of 60 given demolition notices earlier in the year, though they had supposedly been canceled in April), although a bypass road had already been built a quarter mile away and the house built on the side of a steep, rocky hill. Twenty -three other families between the settlements of Kiryat Arba and Givat Ha Harsina receive notices of a proposed road through their properties later the same month.

Rabbi Arik Asherman of Rabbis for Human Rights concludes that the settlers of Susia are not willing to dialogue regarding Shreateh's land without crippling preconditions. A hoped-for meeting is canceled because of settler intransigence.

September 1996
While final plans are made to accompany Shreateh and for an inevitable confrontation, he agrees to postpone plowing his fields pending a meeting with the military governor of Hebron.

On September 25, demonstrations and violent clashes break out throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, sparked by the Israeli government opening an archeological tunnel in East Jerusalem. By the time it's finished, 60 Palestinians and 15 Israeli soldiers are dead; 1,200 Palestinians are injured. In Hebron, the worst day of clashes occurs on Sept. 26, when Israeli soldiers fire rubber and live bullets as well as tear gas at demonstrators. One Palestinian is killed and 33 injured. The IDF places the Palestinian residents of Hebron and members of Christian Peacemaker Teams under curfew, although settlers are allowed to walk the streets freely. During this same period, the Israeli army puts the entire West Bank under internal closure -- separating all towns and villages from each other -- which results in a daily loss of $10 million to the Palestinian economy. Team members receive differing opinions from Palestinian and Israeli friends as to whether they should violate the curfew.

October 1996
The curfew in Hebron, which began on September 26, is lifted. Christian Peacemaker Team members visit the Abu Haikel family who live near the Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida. During the visit, they occasionally hear soldiers announce, "Go to your homes! Curfew!" and then laugh. The Abu Haikels, and the CPTers, don't find this "joke" particularly amusing.

CPTers come across some Palestinian girls they know speaking with an Israeli police officer. Earlier that day, a van driven by a settler man tried to run down the two girls and hit Norva Abu Ramailay (13 years old) in the left side. Her friend was not struck. Norva received minor injuries.

CPTers and members from the Rabbis for Human Rights once again visit Shreateh. Earlier in the morning, Shreateh had gone with two officers from the Israeli military and although both captains studied his legal documents and said they believe the land belongs to him, they said they cannot give him written documentation stating such. The captains said that if Shreateh wants to plow in areas that settlers have not planted trees, he should give them a three-day notice and they will protect him. They will not, however, interfere with the land that's been planted by settlers until court proceedings go through. Later attempts at plowing have continued to result in confrontations with settlers, and inconsistent response from the police and military.

November 1996
The team sees an increase in Israeli soldier drills as the military practices for the long-awaited redeployment (rearrangment) of Israeli troops in Hebron. According to the Oslo II agreements between Arafat and Peres, the redeployment was to have occurred by the end of March, but the Israeli government postponed the event. Sometimes these drills include soldiers in complete combat gear establishing a "mock" curfews, forcing Palestinians to close their shops in the busy marketplace. Ongoing negotiations between Netanyahu and Arafat continue as they try to reach an agreement on redeployment. Some say it's just around the corner, others say it will never happen, others don't seem to think it'll make any difference.

CPTers also see an increase in demonstrations in Hebron -- Israeli peace activists join Palestinians in calling for a just peace and an end to the occupation; settlers demonstrate to protest the pending redeployment. During some of these actions, Palestinians are beaten by Israeli police and soldiers and Israeli peace activists are arrested; the settlers are left alone.

December 1996
On Dec. 9, approximately 200 students from Hebron University, joined by CPTers, enter the school grounds in violation of the military closure. The university campus was closed in March by the army following a wave of suicide bombings in Israel, even though no student or teacher had been accused of participating in the bus bombings or other acts of terrorism.

For the following two weeks, the students continue in nonviolent opposition to the closure, holding sit-ins outside the school for a few hours nearly every morning. They are joined by CPTers. On Dec. 28, following lengthy negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials, the school is reopened. As in the past, international response to CPT urgent action alerts helped facilitate the reopening.

Throughout the month, CPTers hear reports of molotov cocktails being thrown at Beit Hadassah settlement. As CPTers arrive on the scene, journalists, who usually see no evidence, tell them they question the source and intent of the alleged attacks.

Just before Christmas, CPTer Bob Naiman attempts to return to work in Hebron and is refused entry by the Israeli authorities. Despite contact with Israeli lawyers, peace workers, and Israeli parliament members, he is still turned back.

CPTers spend Christmas in Bethlehem. When they return, they learn that earlier in the morning, dozens of settlers attempted to enter and take-over Palestinian homes but 17 were arrested by the Israeli police. Almost all were soon released.

January 1997
Redeployment in Hebron is finally carried out on Jan. 17. The Israeli army leaves 80 percent of Hebron to the Palestinian Police, and 20 percent in the city center remains under direct Israeli control. The number of Israeli soldiers does not decrease, and in fact in the weeks prior to redeployment, CPTers see an increase.

Following redeployment, the Israeli government demolition of Palestinian homes, which had been suspended during intense negotiations, is begun again.

February 1997
Following news that at least 700 Palestinian homes are facing demolition, the team discusses ways they can address this problem. After discussions with the CPT staff, steering committee, and supporters, as well as local Palestinian and Israeli consultants, the team decides to embark on a 700- hour (29-day) Fast for Rebuilding -- one hour for every family facing demolition. The fast calls for an end to Israel's policy of demolishing homes and a rebuilding of those already in ruins.

March 1997
The team begins the fast at the beginning of the month, planning to end on Easter Sunday. Local Palestinians donate a tent for them to publicly fast in during the day in downtown Hebron. The fast gains strong support among local Palestinians who visit the tent by hundreds each day. Scores of villagers come to share their stories of house demolitions, land confiscations, arrests and raids by the Israeli military. Israeli peace workers also join the team periodically, as do international supporters. By the end of the fast, they learn that an estimated one thousand people joined the fast at some level in eight different countries. People joined the fast in different ways -- some for a week, others for a day, others in a total fast.

On Good Friday morning, the team in Hebron together with Palestinians, Israelis and other internationals gather to rebuild a Palestinian home - the same home destroyed in February after CPTers were dragged from the roof. Israeli soldiers prevent the rebuilding and arrest CPTer Cliff Kindy, Palestinians Mohammed Shawer and Mamdoh Abed Al Asam Zaatary, and Israeli Rabbi Arik Asherman. Asherman was released on bond, Kindy was held for four days before returning to the U.S., and Shawer and Zaatary were subjected to beatings and sleep deprivation while in detention for 13 days.

April 1997
CPT member Wendy Lehman is denied entry into Israel on April 16. Israeli authorities inform her at the airport in Tel Aviv that she will not be allowed to enter the country and they put her on a return flight to the U.S.

On April 21, over 500 teachers march through the streets of Hebron in protest of the detention of 25 teachers by Palestinian Authority (PA) Security forces. The march is the latest expression of West Bank teachers' three-month struggle with the PA for better wages and work conditions. As hundreds of teachers gather in Hebron and begin their march, Palestinian police and Preventive Security tell the crowd the march is illegal. The crowd ignores the police and marches anyway, gathering at a local high school to issue statements. Police do not interfere.

May 1997
Following conversation among CPT headquarters in Chicago, the steering committee, the Hebron team, and at the invitation of local Palestinians, CPT launches CPT-Rebuilders Against Bulldozers (CPT-RAB) teams intending to bring several delegations to Israel/Palestine over the next 9-12 months. The focus of these delegations will be on house demolitions; team members will document the cases of families facing demolition while seeking opportunities to rebuild destroyed homes.

Four houses are demolished in the Hebron area on May 6, including the houses of Robir and Hisham Mustaffa Jaber. Mark Frey and Jeremy Bergen try to stop the demolition and take photographs.

On May 20 Daoud Kuttab is arrested in Ramallah while covering Palestinian legislative events. He has helped CPT with communication and legal advice. The US Consulate, family members and his lawyer are denied permission to see him. He is released after being held for one week.

Netanyahu's announcement on May 25 that he is freezing house demolitions rings hollow to villagers who can not even enter the land where their farming shelters are located. New settlements, expansion of old settlements, new settler roads and other unilateral Israeli activities are rendering villagers powerless.

June 1997
On June 10 a twelve member CPT delegation departs for the Middle East. The delegation visits key sites where land confiscation and house demolitions are occuring. Several days are spent with the Hebron team and visits to homes that are targeted for demolition are organized. The delegation is led by Kathy Kern.

On June 12 Israel release Palestinian social worker Riyad Za'aqiq from prison. On June 17, 1996, Israeli soldiers forcefully entered Riyad Za'aqiq's home near Hebron in the middle of the night, blindfolded and arrested him. His pregnant wife was in labor at the time. Za'aqiq is a social worker for DCI (Defense for Children International) with whom Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) members work. Israeli authorities held Za'aqiq without charge or trial for six months at Meggido prison in Israel. CPT, Amnesty International, The World Organisation Against Torture, and other groups sent urgent actions alerts calling for his release.

In Hebron, clashes between Palestinian youth and Israeli soldiers catch the world's attention. Palestinians, mostly teenagers and children, throw rocks and gasoline bombs at soldiers who respond with bullets.

July 1997
Clashes continue. Over two hundred Palestinian youth and half a dozen Israeli soldiers have been injured. There has only been about four days rest since the clashes started last month.

The IDF take over Qurtuba School as a military base. CPT has previously escorted children to this school, in an attempt to reduce settler harassment.

On Thursday, July 10, all of the farm access roads on the outskirts of Hebron are bulldozed, thus preventing access by tractor to fields and vineyards. Several new checkpoints are set up, with the result that all traffic coming into Hebron has been stopped and searched. Palestinians whose ID's do not show Hebron as their address continue to be turned away.

Posters of a pig labeled Mohammed tramping on the Koran are posted on shop doors in the main market.

As agreed in the Hebron Protocol, U.S. AID is redoing Shuhada Street's sewers and water lines, laying new electrical and telephone conduits, repaving the street and providing new sidewalks, sandblasting exteriors, repainting shop and house doors, and installing new awnings all along the street.

The team starts work with Abdel Hadi Hantash, the Hebron representative of the Palestinian Land Defense Committee.

The clashes come to an end mid-month because the Palestinian Authority (PA) sends in troops. The checkpoint on the edge of town is removed. The huge cement blocks that had divided the city between H1 (the area under Palestinian control) from H2 (the area under Israeli control) are also removed from Shalala St. (where the clashes have been occurring).

The team made weekly visits to Beit Ummar this month because over a dozen houses there have received demolition orders.

On July 30 the team learns that there has been a bombing in Jerusalem. Fifteen people are killed and 160 others are injured. The Israeli government imposes an internal closure in the West Bank and Gaza. Despite the efforts of Mark Frey, Esther Ho, Kathleen Kern and Anne Montgomery to convince soldiers of the Golani brigade that they indeed live in Hebron, the soldiers say they can not permit the four Americans to enter Hebron, because of their orders. After forty-five minutes the team is able to return home.

August 1997
A number of Palestinian homes are demolished this month. CPTers are present at the demolition of the home of Faid Jaradat near Sair on August 5.

The team attends a number of meetings and a demostration to show support for the formation of the Coalition against Home Demolitions (an ad hoc organization of several Israeli peace and human rights groups.) The group will focus on home demolitions and plans to visit families living under threat of home demolition in the Hebron area.

U.S. AID works on refurbishing Shuhada Street despite much harassment and abuse by the soldiers and settlers in Hebron, including stealing blocks, shooting at workers with compressed-air pellet guns and Palestinian workers being beaten. On August 30 the paving of Shuhada Street begins. The road was scheduled to be finished by July 15 but because of the harassment and the closures of the past month, it wasn’t completed.

September 1997
On September 1 CPTers meet with members of the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior, who says that CPT must register with the Palestinian Authority in order to work legally in Hebron. They ask for documents to prove that CPT is an actual organization operating out of the United States.

David Muirhead, the American engineer in charge of the U.S. AID funded Shuhada Street renovation, is arrested by the Israeli police for intervening between soldiers and workers. When the part in front of Beit Hadassah is finally paved every type of soldier and police arrived to protect the work on the section of Shuhada Street. Plainclothes Israeli security personnel occupy rooftops and carry "ammunition" off the settlement roof: cartons and sacks of rock, chunks of cement, bottles. Before work begins police cart off cars the settlers refuse to move. There are engineers, laborers, soldiers, civil police, military police, anti-terror police, intelligence agents, TIPH observers, U.S. AID officials, numerous reporters filming, and settlers arguing with police or just watching. The IDF threatens to bring out tanks and troops to stop the paving. The paving is finally completed by September 30.

Excavation starts at the Tel Rumeida settlement in Hebron, a sign that building is going to begin.

October 1997
On October 14, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) demolish two Palestinian homes in the town of Beit Ummar. Several CPT members witness the destruction of the second building; their attempts to intervene are prevented by IDF soldiers.

On October 16 the team is presented with a plaque during their visit with the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, representing over 88,000 Palestinian workers, indicating appreciation of CPT's efforts for peace and justice.

The team participates in a demonstration in Anata, a Palestinian village east of Jerusalem where twenty families have recently received home demolition orders. They present a protection order based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing..."

Near the settlement of Beit Hadassah, a 6-ton soldier outpost is placed on top of a Palestinian building .

On October 29 the settlers hold a protest regarding the reopening of Shuhada street to Palestinian traffic. The peaceful protest lasts about 2 hours. Following the demonstration, a group of 10-15 settler teenagers run through the Arab market.

 

November 1997
On November 2 CPTers note that Palestinian taxis and municipality cars are allowed to enter the bottom half of Shuhada street (which is to be fully open to Palestinian traffic according to the Palestinian- Israeli Hebron Agreement), but very few are allowed to continue up the road past the Israeli settlement of Beit Hadassah.

On November 5 at midnight about 100 Israeli soldiers round up over 200 Palestinian men, aged 15 to 45. It is rumored that a molotov thrown a week earlier near a military checkpoint is the reason for the gathering in the park across from the Ibrahimi Mosque. The Palestinians’ individual pictures are taken and all are held until past 2:00 a.m. in the cold night air. An officer ends the roundup by warning that "All these buildings (the Palestinian homes in the mosque area) will be destroyed if settlers are attacked by stones or bombs."

On November 15 the border police blow up a truck. They seal off the area and call in the bomb squad. An explosive device is attached to the pickup and detonated. There is no secondary explosion, an indication that the pickup was clean (no bombs). The owner, a Bedouin from the Negev, returns to his car an hour later to discover the window blown out of the door on the driver's side and a gaping hole in the door and rear side panel on the passenger side. A soldier when asked about the possibility of compensation for the mistake responds, "It is his problem. It was suspicious. We don't take chances."

A technician in the water department of Hebron, reports to CPT that water lines installed for Palestinian shops and school during the U.S. AID project rebuilding Shuhada St. have been cut ten times in the five weeks since the project was completed. CPTers have observed water spouting from cut lines near their apartment.

CPTers returning from visa renewals are granted visas of only two weeks and one month rather than three month visas.

The team meets with Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions to coordinate the North American and Israeli responsibilities in the Campaign for Secure Dwellings. The campaign is a three-way covenant between Israelis, North Americans, and Palestinian families to stop the destruction of homes .

December 1997
On December 20 CPTers are called to a boundary area between the Israeli and Palestinian zones in Hebron where Israeli soldiers are detaining 13 Palestinians. Cliff Kindy films the situation with a video camera and asks why the Palestinians are being held. One of the three soldiers orders him to leave and tries to stop his filming. Cliff holds his arm and protects the camera and is subsequently arrested and charged with interfering with the work of an officer and assaulting the officer [physical contact is considered assault]. He is held at the police station for 5 hours and released on his own recognizance.

On Christmas Day the team joins over 2000 people in an annual candlelight march for peace from Shepherds Field in Beit Sahour. Immediately following, a group of more than 150 marchers goes to the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem to raise the issue of freedom of worship in Jerusalem. Israeli soldiers refuse to allow the marchers to pass.

January 1998
There are clashes between Palestinians and soldiers at the beginning of the month.

On January 18 the team receives word from the Chicago office that they have received death threats via e-mail and the phone answering machine targeting the Hebron Team.

On January 20 the team holds a press conference at the Hebron municipality regarding the death threats. In addition to CPTers, the Hebron mayor, Mustapha Natshe, and Palestinian human rights lawyer, Jonathan Kuttab, speak at the press conference.

On January 27 as CPTers return toward home from night patrol, a car with yellow plates (West Bank Palestinians have blue plates; Israelis, including settlers, have yellow plates) approaches them from behind. A young man wearing a skull cap shouts a threat from the back seat as the car slows down and passes them. "Go back to America you scumbags before we kill you." Then louder, "We will kill you."

February 1998
The team meets with Major Rocky from the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), the liason between CPT and the IDF. Major Rocky explains that sometimes CPT's intervention work is problematic for the IDF. The team explains that CPT's work in Hebron is supposed to be promblematic for the IDF.

From February 9 to 15 the team and members of a delegation help set up, as well as attend, the Sabeel Palestinian Liberation Theology Conference at Bethlehem University. Speakers include Edward Said, Hanan Ashrawi, Mark Ellis, Uri Davis and others. The team hosts two groups of conference attendees on one of the days.

A delegation member photographs the excavation of a tunnel designed to connect all of the Heron settlements to each other and to the Ibrahimi Mosque. Israeli authorities have denied the existence of this tunnel. The delegate, an archaeologist with a long history of excavations in Israel and Palestine, is particularly incensed at the destruction of unique archaeological and historical information caused by these excavations.

Near the end of the month Palestinian shops in a part of the market under Israeli control are put under curfew for a number of days, supposedly because a molotov cocktail had been thrown from that area.

March 1998
On March 3 Yussef and Zuhoor Al-Atrash experience their second home demolition. On the 8^th the team receives a call from the family. CPTers investigate and find that nearly 100 soldiers and settlers have converged on the family demanding they cease construction of their home and threatening to bomb the construction equipment. The team, along with various Israeli and international peace groups, maintain a continuous presence at the home for a number of weeks. On March 22 Yussuf, Zuhoor, Hussam and Manal are all arrested and the cement mixer the family is using to rebuild their home is confiscated. Zuhoor and Manal are released that evening. A judge pronounces a sentence of a 1500 shekel fine each for the two men or 60 days in jail. An Israeli group pays the fine and Yussef and Hussam are released on March 29.

On March 10 clashes begin to protest the IDF killing of three workers from Dura as they crossed the Tarqoumia checkpoint from Israel into the West Bank. The clashes continue throughout the week. During the clashes a couple of journalists are shot.

In the middle of the month a road is bulldozed in the Beqa’a Valley to make way for a gas station for the settlements of Kiryat Arba and Givat Ha Harsina.

April 1998
The team worships at the Al-Atrash home on Palm Sunday and on Easter. Later in the month the Al-Atrash family gets a phone from World Vision so that they will be able to call for help if soldiers come again. The family also gets a electricity hook up from the Hebron Municipality.

On Sunday, April 6 an anonymous caller leaves a message on the answering machine in the Chicago office threatening to send Israeli intelligence teams to kill the CPT staff who work in Chicago.

The team finds out from a Palestinian friend who lives south of Yatta near Ma'oun settlement that about 100 families in that area have orders to evacuate their houses. Abdel Hadi Hantash later reports that 6 new settlements are planned along the southern border of Hebron district just beyond the Green Line. He thinks this may be related to the eviction notices.

On April 19 Dov Drivven, a settler, is killed in a confrontation with Palestinian shepherds. According to news reports, a shepherd snatched his gun from him and shot him with it. The team later hears that a second settler shot Dov by mistake. On April 23 the team learns that the military has arrested 38 people in the remote area where he was killed.

On April 30 Israel celebrates its 50th anniversary. Settlers hold a demonstration at Jabal Abu Ghneim (Har Homa) on the border of Bethlehem to demand that building for the new settlement begin immeditely. Peace Now holds a counter-demonstration at the foot of the mountain.

May 1998
Yaaleh Cohen from Bat Shalom spends a few days with the team. David Wilder of the Hebron settler community distributes an e-mail release entitled, "CPT-Squalor on the Face of the Earth."

The team learns that settlers from Ma’on settlement have prevented farmers from harvesting their wheat and that the number of people arrested since Dov’s death has risen to fifty.

Charles Lenchner, an Israeli who hopes to establish a Jewish Peacemaker Team, spends 3 days with the team.

On May 14 Palestinians commemorate Al Nakba, (The Catastrophe). In Hebron, over a thousand Palestinians march nonviolently in H-1, but clashes occurr at the dividing lines between H-1 and H-2, when dozens of young Palestinians begin throwing rocks. Team members witness the efforts of Palestinian security forces to prevent additional boys from joining the clashes by linking arms and standing between them and the rock-throwing youth. However, after about an hour they are overwhelmed by the crowd and abandon the effort. Shooting by Israeli soldiers continues. Several Palestinians are injured, but none fatally. Sporadic clashes continue for three days.

At the end of the month CPT responds to a number of calls from families in the Beqa’a Valley where settlers from Harsina are bulldozing a new road and erecting electrical towers near the gas station under construction.

June 1998
The team and delegation members assist the Ibrahim Abu Jindeeya family with their wheat harvest. The family is one of several who live in the Yatta area, southeast of Hebron. A few weeks later Ibrahim Jindeeya and his brother report that settlers have burned 150 dunams (about 40 acres) of unthrashed wheat the day before. CPTers visit the family to document this fact. After visiting the fields, CPTers go to the home of the settlers accused of burning the wheat. Although team members are unable to speak to the actual family of the house, a friend of the family speaks to the team about the killing of a settler several weeks ago and the burning of the wheat.

Team members attend the LAW conference in Jerusalem from June 7 through 10. On June 10 there is a demonstration in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, where Jewish settlers have moved into four Palestinian homes in the early hours of the previous morning. According to newspaper reports, the group, part of the Elad ("To the City of David") Association, cites an Israeli High Court decision issued 3 months ago, and asserts that they had a right to occupy the homes. About 150 demonstrators carry signs into the courtyard of one of the affected houses, decrying human rights abuses in Israel/Palestine. Police and Israeli military quickly move in, calling on people to leave the area. "This is an illegal protest on private property," they say, and begin to push the demonstrators. After the demonstrators move to a second house, police begin physically removing protesters from the area, kicking, striking, and dragging them. Bouwmeester struggles to protect a demonstration organizer being beaten by an Israeli soldier by covering him with his body. Six people, including at least one Palestinian (but no CPTers), are arrested.

On June 11 the new house of Yussef and Zuhoor Al-Atrash is demolished. Upon arrival at the site, CPTers see 8 military jeeps and a bulldozer leaving the scene. Yussef and Manal are arrested for resisting the demolition. They are released around noon.

The team has a round-the-clock presence in the Beqa’a Valley from June 14 to June 19 because of the threat of imminent demolitions. No demolitions occur during this time.

On June 16 Abdel Majid Abu Turki is killed. According to news reports, two youths from the Beit Haggai settlement admit to striking him in the head with a plank of wood from a passing van.

July 1998
On July 9 the Israeli Defense Force sets up roadblocks and prevents cars from entering or leaving H2. They also put part of the center of Hebron under closure. There are clashes in the center market in protest.

From July 9 to 20, the Israeli Committee sponsors a travelling potest tent against home demolitions. It is inaugurated in Beit El on the 9^th. During the inauguration word is received of two home demolitions happening nearby. A bus full of Israeli peace activists is diverted to the scene where they attempt to stop the demolition. The tent campaign ends on the 20^th with a series of protest meetings in Jerusalem in front of the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem, the Jerusalem City Council, and in a park in front of the Knesset (Israeli parliament).

The team, along with Israeli peace groups, plans an action for July 17^th to paint over the settler graffiti scrawled on Palestinian shop doors. On the 13^th the team discovers that the Civil Administration has hired someone to paint over the graffiti for them. The IDF almost blows up the painter’s car, thinking it may contain a bomb. On the 17^th the Israeli Human Rights Defenders' Team comes to paint over some of the graffiti that remained. When the group goes on a tour of the old city market, Israeli soldiers tell them it was a closed military zone to Israelis. When the group walks past Beit Hadassah they are stopped by Israeli police and taken to the Kiryat Arba police station for several hours of interrogation.

Fayez and Hudda Jaber, along with six other families in the Beqa’a Valley, receive a one-week demolition order on July 20^th. In light of this threat, the team maintains a three day presence at their home at the end of the month. On July 31^st Fayez reports that all of his irrigation pipes have been taken by the Israeli authorities, who also accuse families in the area of stealing water.

August 1998
The house in Anata where two CPTers and Jeff Halper are maintaining a presence during the rebuilding is demolished on August 3^rd.

On August 4^th soldiers rip up and confiscate irrigation lines from tomato and sqaush fields in the Beqa’a Valley. Jim Satterwhite joins some of the Palestinian women who are moving the pipes to the next field to protect them from confiscation. He is arrested when he picks up one of the coils of piping and is about to move it. He is taken to the Kiryat Arba police station and is held for four hours.

On August 15^th the team hears that the Israeli High Court has overturned the demolition orders for several Palestinian families matched through CPT's Campaign for Secure Dwellings.

On August 19^th the home of Atta and Rhodeina Jaber is demolished in the Beqa’a Valley. They decide to rebuild a two-room house and many Palestinians and internationals participate in the rebuilding.

On Thursday the 20^th Rabbi Shlomo Ra’anan from Tel Rumeida settlement is killed. Curfew is imposed on Hebron until August 30^th.

At the end of the month the team hears that the owner of the house in Anata, which is destroyed twice in July-August, has been granted a permit.

September 1998
On September 10^th the IDF destroys Abdel Jawad and Jawdi Jaber’s terraces and olive trees. Then on the 16^th Atta and Rhodeina’s house is demolished, exactly four weeks after the previous demolition. During the demolition Atta is arrested. His trial is set for September 23^rd and he is released on September 27^th. The charge against him is stated as "assault by infant" since during the demolition he handed his five-month-old son, Rajeh, to an Israeli border policeman saying, "You raise my child, I cannot."

In the middle of the month Manal Al-Atrash is attacked and beaten near her home by three Israeli paratroopers. According to Israeli news sources, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that soldiers on patrol had stopped and used force on the young woman. When relatives come by to see what is happening, the soldiers accused her of having thrown stones. Manal is hospitalized for two days.

On the last day of the month, two grenades are thrown by an unidentified person in Aaron Gross Square. At least one of them blows up a Palestinian car. The Israeli-controlled area of Hebron (H2) is put under curfew. All of Hebron is placed under closure.

October 1998
Clashes break out at the borders between the Israeli- and Palestinian-controlled areas of Hebron and last until October 12^th. The team witnesses a journalist being shot in the head with a rubber-coated metal bullet. Shuhada Street is closed to traffic again. On the 2^nd the entire West Bank is placed under closure as Israeli authorities claim to have proof of a Hamas plan to attack Israel. The team holds a candlelight vigil at sites where clashes have occurred. The curfew is finally lifted the middle of the month but the closure of Shuhada Street in front of Beit Hadassah continues.

On October 7^th thousands of Jewish visitors, the largest crowd yet experienced by CPTers in Hebron, arrive for a concert by a Hasidic music star at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Israeli government officials lay the foundation stone for a permanent settlement at Tel Rumeida.

A settler is murdered on the afternoon of October 26^th, Danny Vargas from Kiryat Arba. The Israeli-controlled area of Hebron is placed under curfew again until October 28^th.

November 1998
CPT hosts a Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation at the beginning of the month. The schoolgirls and teachers from Qurtuba School are harassed as they walk in front of Beit Hadassah settlement. They are allowed to pass freely until 7:30am at which point soldiers make them walk a longer way around, encouraging a dog to frighten them. CPT and the FOR delegates maintain a presence in this area each morning for a number of days. Some of the girls are assualted and three require overnight hospitalization. The principal of the school and one student are arrested and held for a few hours.

On November 6 a car bomb explodes in the crowded Jerusalem Mahane Yehuda market, killing the two Palestinian assailants and injuring 16 other people. The Islamic Jihaad political group claims responsibility.

On November 13 an un-detonated grenade is thrown at the Israeli military checkpoint at Aaron Gross Square. The military blows up the grenade and then declares curfew. Some young men in the old city are arrested. The curfew is lifted two days later.

There are many attempts at land confiscation through bulldozing of fields and trees and preparing for new roads this month. Also many stop-work and home demolition orders are issued.

December 1998
The team hosts some diplomats early in the month and gives them a tour as well as talking about the work of CPT.

Political prisoners go on a hunger strike protesting the release of common criminals instead of political prisoners as outlined in the Wye Agreement. There are clashes throughout the West Bank as the strike continues with planned solidarity marches held throughout.

There are more examples of land confiscation this month with the bulldozing of roads, the setting up of new settlements and new home demolition and stop work orders issued.

Clinton comes to visit in Israel-Palestine and on the 16^th the US and Great Britain bomb Iraq. Clashes occur in Hebron as a response to the bombing and thirty-one Palestinians are injured by rubber-coated metal bullets.

January 1999
Curfew is imposed on the 4^th after two Jewish settler women are shot in H2. Two days later a young Palestinian man is shot outside the CPT apartment. The team later learns that the man has died.

Palestinians hold noviolent marches protesting the curfew and the closure of Hebron. On the 10^th CPTers join one of the nonviolent demonstrations and Pierre Shantz and Sara Reschly are arrested for "stopping soldiers from doing their duty." In the evening, the week-long curfew and closure is lifted. The next day Sara and Pierre are released without their passports and with 2000 shekels each, paid on their behalf by courtroom supporters. Charges are later dropped against them and their passports and the money are returned.

The terraces that Jawdi Jaber has reconcstructed since the demolition of the others last September are bulldozed.

Rich Meyer climbs onto bulldozers along with 30-40 Israelis protesting bypass road #45 north of Jerusalem near Ramallah. Ten Israelis are arrested, and the bulldozers stop work for the morning.

CPTers join 100 Israelis and 100 Palestinians who replant trees which have been uprooted near the Green Line near Tulkarm. The event is initiated by Palestinians and Israelis who have been meeting for two years with the motto, "Right of dignity, duty of respect."

February 1999
The team decides to fast from solid foods for an entire week, to gain a sense of clarity and vision for expanding the Campaign for Secure Dwellings and responding to the events in Hebron and the surrounding Hebron District in the coming months. Instead of eating supper, they have a "Meal Without Food" each evening.

Three CPTers hold signs alongside Palestinians and Israelis in a demonstration against the police and military violence that kills 21-year-old Zaki Afaid. Afaid was shot in the head and neck with three rubber-coated steel bullets while he was protesting the demolition of his family's home in Issaweiah, a village north of Jerusalem. The demonstration which begins as a silent vigil outside the national police headquarters in Jerusalem, is organized by Israeli peace groups. After about an hour, the demonstrators take signs and go to Issaweiah, marching silently down the main street with signs saying, "Stop Using Rubber Bullets," and "Justice now for all Homes Demolished." The Israelis visit the family to express their regret for the death of Zaki.

The team again hosts some diplomats this month and giving them a tour as well as talking about the work of CPT.

On the 4^th the team has plans to hold a small worship service in front of Beit Hadassah, where Palestinians have not been allowed to pass since October. As they began walking up the steep stairs around the street, soldiers call them back and point out that some Palestinians behind them are now walking past Beit Hadassah. To the teams amazement, Shuhada Street is opened that day to Palestinian pedestrians. Police and TIPH personnel are present to monitor any tension between Palestinians and setlers. Later that day the team receives a phone call that Fayez and Huda Jabber's house had been demolished in the Beqa'a Valley earlier that morning.

The team finds out that the preparations for making Tel Rumeida permanent have been stopped while Palestinian pursue a lawsuit in the Israeli high court protesting the possible damage to archaeological sites. Tel Rumeida is the site of ancient ruins going back to Abraham's time and is also considered the site of King David's first city.

The team begins Tent for Lent, a campaign to raise awareness of the issue of home demolitions. The team lives in a tent in downtown Hebron for a few days.

March 1999
CPTers join Palestinains west of Karmei Tzur settlement to call on the military to remove the poles placed along a settler road encircling Palestinian land. While military officers argue with Palestinian leadership "explaining" why the poles are still up, a smaller group of farmers digs up and cuts down poles.

On March 12 the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and the Palestinian Land Defense Committee (PLDC) organize a mass action against the Occupation that takes place in four locations simultaneously. Demolished houses are rebuilt in Anata (Jerusalem area), Yatta (Hebron area), and Kifl Haris, and trees are planted in Beit Dajan to replace trees uprooted by settlers and soldiers. More than 500 people participate in the action.

 

April 1999
On Easter Sunday tens of thousands of Jewish visitors come to Hebron to celebrate Passover. CPTer Anne Montgomery meets 5 soldiers looking for "CPT" to warn the team not to take pictures of the neighboring soldier camp which is easily visible from the CPT rooftop. Later in the month a CPTer is ordered to get off the roof by a soldier stationed on the roof across the street and when CPTers take a group to the CPT roof to show them the view they are immediately told that they will have to get down by soldiers across the street. Speaking in Hebrew, the Jewish-American members of the group ask why it is forbidden for them to be on the roof. The reply is security reasons. Eventually an officer comes to the roof across the street and tells the group they have two minutes to get down or everyone will be arrested.

Yussef Al Atrash, a friend of the team who has had his home demolished three times, is stopped at the Bethlehem checkpoint as he returns to the West Bank from Jerusalem. When his ID is checked in the computer, his record shows his past history of building "illegal structures" and indicates that he currently had an illegal one on his property, although the only structure on his property is a tent. He is arrested and brought to the Kiryat Arba police station where he is held in jail over night and charged NIS 1000 ($250), which the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions pays.

Near the end of the month the team and a delegation accompanies about a dozen Palestinian merchants as they march up Shuhada Street and then to the Hebron city hall to protest the continued Israeli-imposed closure of the street and its affect on their business. The march happens without incident. Police and soldiers seem confused as the group walked past Beit Hadassah settlement. At city hall, the group has a short meeting with the mayor in which they air their grievances.

May 1999
On the first day of the month a border police soldier in Hebron is waving around his M-16 in anger at some children and accidentally shoots and wounds two children from the Muhtaseb family near the Cave of Machpela. The bullet passes through the leg of the 11 year old boy and hits a wall, causing shrapnel that grazes the head of his 4 year old sister. The boy is treated at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem where he undergoes a 14 hour surgery. The military apologizes for the accident.

On the 13 the Israeli army destroys four houses in the southern Hebron District.

On the 17^th Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu loses his office to Ehud Barak.

In the middle of the month the team is in the Beqa'a valley as the Israeli Army demolishes three Palestinian agricultural reservoirs. Soldiers remove CPTer Jamey Bouwmeester and Jeff Halper of ICAHD when they attempt to prevent the demolitions by getting in the way of a bulldozer. Halper is handcuffed and taken to Kiryat Arba police station, but is released that evening

At the end of the month there is dynamiting on the hill above Abdel Jawad Jaber’s house to break up rocks and clear the earth so that new settlement housing can be built there. Israeli surveyors also put up lines within meters of the house to mark where a new retaining wall for the settlement will be built

June 1999
The Palestinian Authority declares a "Day of Anger" against Israel's settlement policy on the 3^rd. In Hebron the political and religious leadership organize a large demonstration, intending to march peacefully from the Palestinian controlled area of the city into the Israeli controlled area and then past the settlement of Beit Hadassah. When the demonstrators reach the border of the two parts of the city, several young teenagers pick up stones to throw at the Israeli soldiers who are waiting for them. The teenagers are immediately reprimanded by older organizers. Before the demonstrators reach the settlement, Israeli soldiers block the road and begin to physically push the marchers back. Realizing that they will not be allowed to continue and that violence might break out, the Palestinian leaders end the demonstration and lead the demonstrators back up the street and across the border into the Palestinian controlled part of the city.

 

July 1999
The team attempts to visit a friend of the team who lives just past Tel Rumeida. Soldiers prevent the team from walking past the settlement, explaining that they have orders that no visitors can walk there. When the team finally visits with the friend at his work, he explains that the soldiers at that checkpoint have been stopping people for a while. Again, the team walks up to the checkpoint, and the soldiers look at their armbands and say, "CPT - not allowed." When asked why, they answer that their captain has ordered it.

On July 10 team members travel to Anata for a celebration of the newly built home of the Shawamreh family. Around four hundred Israelis, Palestinians and internationals come to celebrate in solidarity with the family. Several organizations make speeches challenging Ehud Barak to bring an end to home demolitions, and expressing their hopes for a just peace and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Later the team hears about how settlers have been entering a Palestinian neighborhood near the top of Tel Rumeida since the beginning of the summer. Two olive groves there belonged to the Jewish community in Hebron before 1929, and the settlers wish to claim them. In light of all this, CPT begins a daily presence near the top of Tel Rumeida hill in the afternoons which last about two weeks. One afternoon when CPT arrives, a group of about 10 settlers, all women and children, are sitting in an olive grove across from Palestinian houses. Israeli police and soldiers are present. The settlers and police do not respond when a family member tries to drive his truck in; the settlers do not move their vehicle until police force them to leave the area. The last day of the month CPTers observe eight young settler men sitting on a pile of construction materials at the top of the hill. Palestinian residents and Israeli police and soldiers are gathered. Palestinian residents tell CPT that when the settlers first arrived, they began to pick up some of the building materials. The police show the settlers orders forbidding them to be there, and the settlers left quietly.

August 1999
The evening of August 3 someone shoots at two settlers from the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba as they are driving towards the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Following the incident, Israeli soldiers prevent CPTers and members of TIPH from leaving the park across from the Tomb. TIPH is guaranteed freedom of movement by prior agreement with both Israeli and Palestinian authorities. When the TIPH members call their liaison officer within the Israeli military, the officer in charge at the scene refuses to speak with him. The next day curfew is declared on Hebron and clashes break out. The curfew lasts for four days. Later CPTers pray at the site of the shooting as well as at the sites of the clashes.

On the 11^th the Israeli military demolishes two homes in Walaje, a small Palestinian village south of Jerusalem. The villagers begin to rebuild the houses the same day since the residents of Walaje, many of whom have received demolition orders, have an agreement that everyone will join together to rebuild in the event of a demolition. CPTers and delegation members join in the rebuilding a few days later.

August 19^th Shuhada Street is partly reopened to Palestinian vehicles. The section of road running past Beit Hadassah remains closed to through traffic however. Settlers demonstrate against the opening of the street by forming a motorcade and driving slowly on the street. CPT observes Israeli police blockading and dispersing the demonstration, except for one van which remains on the street blocking one lane of traffic. The van finally moves after a tow truck arrives on the scene. Israeli police give the driver a ticket for obstructing traffic. Later that morning, Israeli parliament member Ariel Sharon speaks against the opening to the press in front of Beit Hadassah.

At the end of the month a fire starts in the former wholesale market in front of Avraham Avinu settlement. CPT arrives on the scene after the fire, which started in a closed storage area, has been put out. Israeli military personnel at the scene blame the fire on an electrical problem. The mayor of Hebron expresses concern that fires often start in the market when it is closed or when there are few people around.

September 1999
On the 4^th an agreement is signed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt setting target dates for the opening of a further section of Shuhada Street (October 30), and partial re-opening of the Palestinian market in front of Avraham Avinu settlement (November 1). Later in the month Abdel Hadi Hantash reports that the first stage of the Sharm al Sheikh redeployments concentrate mostly along the western border of the Hebron district and do not affect any of the families CPT works with.

October 1999
October 9 While giving a tour of Hebron, Jamey Bouwmeester witnessed a delegation of Jordanian and Palestinian politicians near the Tomb of the Patriarchs. A group of settlers was also in the area for Shabbat prayers. A confrontation ensued with Palestinian security and Israeli military forces between the two groups. Eventually the politicians and the settlers moved on leaving only Israeli military and Palestinian shopkeepers in the area. Tensions were still running high and when soldiers began pushing and arresting Palestinians, Bouwmeester got involved. He tried to separate some soldiers from Palestinians they were harassing, asking the soldiers to "take it easy." One particularly agitated soldier began pushing Bouwmeester, asking him, "Why do you want to hurt us?" "I don't want to hurt you," Bouwmeester replied, "You're hurting me." A moment later Bouwmeester was escorted to a police jeep and told he was under arrest. However, after being held for 30 minutes, he was released.

October 13 Abdel Hadi Hantash of the Palestinian Land Defense Committee (PLDC) took the team and two journalists to an area near Idna village, west of Hebron, where more than 5000 acres were recently declared closed military areas. Tens of families were given evacuation orders although all plan to defy the orders. The area is nearly adjacent to the border between the West Bank and Israel and it is expected that this is the first step towards annexing the land to Israel.

October 21 Anne Montgomery attended a demonstration organized by Bethlehem University students to protest the new checkpoint. The demonstrators walked towards the checkpoint, and without warning Israeli soldiers fired rubber coated bullets and tear gas into the crowd. Montgomery and several of the demonstrators sought refuge from the gas in a nearby store. When they tried to exit the store, they were fired upon again. Five students were injured and taken to area hospitals.

31 October Israelis from Hebron and neighboring settlement Kiryat Arba prayed in front of Beit Hadassah settlement for several hours in the morning, blocking the street to protest the scheduled opening of Shuhada Street to all Palestinian vehicle traffic. In a press statement, Jewish settlers said they were concerned about security risks with Shuhada Street, or King David Street, as they call it, being opened to Palestinian vehicle traffic. They also expressed concerns about the opening of the "safe passage" way between Gaza and the West Bank, complained that they are limited to certain areas and streets in Hebron and asked for safe passage, too. Around 10 a.m. the settler demonstration and prayers concluded.

Some time later, the Israeli commander for the Hebron District ordered the blockades opened up but only for Palestinian taxis. He said to journalists that this would be a test, and that if nothing happens the IDF may open the street up to more traffic. At about 10:30 a.m. soldiers pushed aside the large barriers and waved through a taxi whose unsuspecting driver was confused that soldiers were waving him through the previously-closed route. As journalists snapped photos and interviewed passengers, more taxis began using the new route.

November 1999
November 10 IDF troops removed Israeli settlers from the hilltop settlement of Havat Ma'on early in the morning, with international and Israeli journalists observing.

November 13 Joanne Kaufman accompanied Palestinian journalist Kawther Salam to Yatta to investigate reports that Palestinian farmers had been injured by settlers hiding out in caves near Havat Ma'on. A farmer in a Yatta hospital had bruises and 12 stitches in his head from stones and sticks wielded by the 60 or so settlers who attacked the six Palestinian men from an extended family. The Palestinians had gone to plant farmland that settlers had prevented them from tending for a year and a half.

November 15 Palestine Independence Day. Four CPTers went to Yatta area with Abdel Hadi Hantash of the Hebron District Land Defense Committee and a journalist. They waited an hour to enter the closed military area that had been imposed since the previous day, and were finally allowed in because of the journalist's privileges. The military stopped them at the next checkpoint, at the road into Twaneh. When the farmers just happened to drive by on their tractor, they invited the group into the village and their fields. An Israeli officer and 14 soldiers stopped the group of six plus two Palestinian farmers and forbade them to go to the fields. They said the fields would be opened on Friday.

November 16 Kaufman went with a Palestinian journalist to Twaneh after they received a call saying that Israeli soldiers were evicting Bedouin families in the area from their homes and fields. They sneaked into the area to photograph and interview the families packing up chickens, household pans and goods, bedding and bedsprings and animal feeders and wood into wagons pulled by tractors. When asked why they were packing up their own things, the people replied that they didn't want the soldiers to do it because they would probably break things and might demolish their simple cave homes. Soldiers claimed they were just following orders and evicting the families "for their own safety."

The pair also noted that Ma'on Farm is now inhabited by Israeli soldiers. No soldiers were guarding the caves near the Farm, indicating that maybe the Israeli settlers who had hidden in the caves have been removed from that area as Barak's government claimed.

December 1999
December 13 During visits to the Beqa'a Valley, CPTers Natasha Krahn and Jane Adas noticed that water pipes were again being cut by the Israeli water company. Cutting off the water supply of the farmers is one aspect of this pressure.

Two team members responded to a call from the Beqa'a Valley to translator Zleekha. The Israeli settlers who demonstrated for the demolition of a Palestinian family's house a week ago had planted grapevines and spray-painted stars of David on land just north of the house. By the time CPTers arrived, the settlers had left.

The family reported that some Palestinian children had uprooted the grapevines. They said that one of the sons of Israeli settler leader Moshe Levinger had threatened that he would come and uproot more of the family's grapevines in retaliation the next day. The land belongs to a another family but is worked by this family. CPTers saw the remains of long tapers from five nights of settler vigils around the house from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

December 21 In the evening, 250 settlers surrounded the Omar and Lamia Sultan house, threatening to demolish the house themselves if the Israeli military government would not. One settler tried to enter the house. Two demolition orders were issued, by the military government, to the family against the house in 1995.

December 22 After several weeks of harassment from Israeli settlers, the Sultan family invited CPT to begin a presence with them. The team sent Gish as a one-person presence, since he is matched with the family in the CSD. About 25 Israeli settlers were demonstrating between the house and the bypass road 75 meters below it. They wanted the demolition of the Sultan house and land, owned by another Palestinian family just north of the house, for a settlement or expansion of Kiryat Arba 3 km away. The Israeli military moved the settlers and their banners across the road. The settlers built a fire across the road and the Sultan's built a fire in front of their house to keep warm for the vigil through the night.

December 25 When Art Gish returned to the Sultan house, Israeli settlers were holding a large rally across the road. Late in the evening, about 100 settlers began tearing down a rock terrace wall near the house, despite the presence of Israeli police and soldiers. The settlers declared that they would return on Tuesday to demolish the Sultan house and start a settlement

December 27 No settlers appeared but many Palestinian neighbors, journalists and international visitors went to the Sultan home to offer support. Two Jewish peace activists from Gush Shalom ("Peace Bloc," an Israeli peace organization) and two Jewish activists from the U.S. and Canada spent the night with the family in case bulldozers came the next morning. Other Israeli peace activists and organizations also contacted the Israeli government to express their concern for the Palestinian family's safety.

December 28 The Israeli government promised that the Sultan home would not be demolished. Israeli soldiers arrived at the house at 11 a.m. and said that the area had been declared a closed military zone, and that everyone but the Sultan's would have to leave or risk arrest. Three Gush Shalom activists were prepared to stay, but the soldiers did not carry out the threat. A bus and several car-loads of other Israeli peace people came and held banners all afternoon to support the family. CPTers stayed overnight again in case settlers came but none did.

December 29 Israeli soldiers again declared a closed military zone in the morning. CPTers visiting the Sultan family left, and Gish left for a few hours to visit neighbors a few houses away. A bus-load of Israeli settlers arrived and held another demonstration on the land north of the Sultan house for several hours before being removed by Israeli soldiers. At one point, they rushed toward the Sultan house but were stopped by Israeli soldiers at a stone wall near the house.

December 30 Local Palestinian Authority leaders organized a demonstration at the land near the Sultan house. They were stopped for over an hour a mile away from the house before some were allowed to visit the Sultan house. The demonstrators included a member and former member of the Israeli Knesset, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and several Israeli peace activists. While the group was visiting the Sultan's, an Israeli military commander told the group that the Sultan home would not be demolished.

There has been no settler activity at the Sultan home since the first of January. The attempt of the settlers to establish a new settlement near the Sultan home has been thwarted.

January 2000
The team is told by the Sultans that their home is still a "military closed zone," presumably to keep Israeli settlers from harassing them. Soldiers do not stop or harass the team when they visit the family.

The gates just north of the Beit Hadassah settlement are removed by settlers. The settlers do not want any walls around them, feeling that gates and walls enclose them into a ghetto here. When asked why the soldiers didn't stop this action, a soldier responded: "There were too many of them. What can we do? We can't beat them because they are Jews".

It snows on the 27^th and Hebron is shut down for two days under almost two feet of snow.

February 2000
February 11 In "sympathy" with Israel's greed for more land, CPTers along with Israeli Peace activists and Palestinians "helped" by taking buckets of soil to Harsina settlement. One at a time, the demonstrators poured the contents of their buckets out at the feet of soldiers and police and onto confiscated land. The action was the kick-off to a world wide campaign to send packets of soil to the Israeli government.

Feb. 15 Most of the CPT team went to observe a settler demonstration at a Palestinian owned gas station scheduled to reopen on Shuhada street. The gas station has been closed for many years because it is close to a Jewish settlement and deemed a security risk. Several hundred settlers showed up for the demonstration which called for its continued closure. One speaker warned that reopening the gas station "would be a point for the terrorists". Palestinian foot traffic was prevented from passing by the demonstration and was re-routed on a foot-path above Shuhada street. The gas station remains closed.

Feb. 22 CPT was informed today about a West Bank teacher's strike. Teachers are demanding an increase in their salaries, which has actually decreased in past years. Their wages are between $300-$500 U.S. per month. The Palestinian media has been discouraged from covering the strike, and a T.V. station which interviewed some teachers has been closed by the Palestinian Authority.

Feb. 24 Anita Fast and Reinhard Kober went to observe a teachers strike demonstration at the Ministry of Education. At least 400 teachers gathered for the demonstration, which was policed by Palestinian Authority forces in bullet proof vests and helmets. "This is not a political strike", one of the teachers told Fast, "this is a strike just for food. We are starving. Teachers live in bad conditions. We do not have money to buy food and clothing for our children." The demonstration lasted an hour and ended peacefully.

Feb. 25 Upon returning to Hebron, CPT received word that more garbage had been thrown onto the porch of the Abu Daoud family. Fast, David Cockburn, and Kober went with Palestinian journalist, Kawther Salaam to the family's home and documented the situation as Salaam began arranging to lodge a formal complaint with the military.

Feb. 28 Harassment continued today for the Abu Daoud family living beside the Avraham Avinu settlement when soldiers stationed on their roof began stomping on their metal roof until Nazeeha Abu Daoud came out of her room screaming. They then threw a small but heavy piece of metal down through the mesh wire covering the family courtyard and porch areas. Fast went with Kawthur Salaam to their home. Salaam suspects that the harassment from the soldiers is due to her complaint to the commander of the army, who had paid the Abu Daoud family a visit earlier that day and promised to "look into" settler harassment.

March 2000
March 6 Work began on a Palestinian-owned gas station next to Isreali settlement, Beit Hadassah, which is scheduled to reopen after years of being closed for "security reasons". Dozens of extra soldiers and Israeli police officers were brought in to help control settlers from Hebron and near-by Kiryat Arba who were aggressively protesting the station's re-opening. Settlers pulled down barriers surrounding the station, and tried to sit in the ditches being dug for a fence. Reinhard Kober, Rick Carter, Dianne Roe, and Anita Fast went to the station to observe the situation, and were consistently called "Nazi" by settlers. A group of young settler men approached Fast and one of them yelled at her, "You are a Nazi! Why are you here? We don't want you here! You are a Nazi!" Fast looked him in the eyes and responded "I just want you to know that I mean you no harm". A larger crowd of settlers gathered around Fast and the settler kept yelling, "I don't believe you! You are a hypocrite! You love the Arabs! You are a Nazi! Why don't you leave!" Fast replied, "I will leave when there is no longer the threat of violence here." Some settlers laughed and one replied, "That will never happen." A police officer tapped Fast on the shoulder and motioned her to move away from the crowd. He said to her, "stay over here, I don't want you to get hurt." The settlers remained at the gas station all day, trying to stop the work from being done.

March 7 Settlers continued to demonstrate at the gas station today. Police and soldiers were not allowing any Palestinians to walk up Shuhada street past the station and the protesters. Rich Meyer and Anne Montgomery went to observe and noticed that settler youth were still being quite aggressive in their actions, and that police were starting to get rougher with them, sometimes pushing them down.

March 21 Today was also the day of the last redeployment in the West Bank before the final status talks. 6.1% of Israeli controlled land was handed over to the Palestinian Authority. None of our CSD families are affected by the redeployment and remain living under full Israeli control.

March 29 The Israeli Supreme Court met today to decide on the fate of the Palestinian families evicted from the Yatta area in November. Montgomery, Roe, Carter, and Kober went to Jerusalem to hear the Supreme Court decision. Many Yatta families and Israeli peace activists also gathered at the court. The Court ruled that the displaced families could return to their land and their homes immediately, and that an arbiter would be appointed to figure out which families are permanent residents and have the right to stay there.

April 2000
April 6 Israeli settlers who had been evicted from their settlement, Ha'vat Maon, last November, returned to the land near Yatta and set up a tent where they had been before. They did this in response to the Israeli High Court decision permitting 85 Palestinian families to return to their homes and farms in the area from which they had also been evicted. The IDF removed the settlers again, but are allowing them to return once a week to check on the crops they have planted. Abdel Hadi Hantash of the Palestinian Land Defense Committee reported that the IDF has announced that they will accept the return of Palestinian families, but that only the 85 families who were listed on the original court petition will be allowed back. Nineteen new eviction notices were given to other Palestinian families in the area, demanding they leave within 24 hours. The families refused to leave, and are waiting to see whether they will be forcibly evicted.

April 9 The team traveled to Yatta to join Palestinians from the area, Israeli peace activists and media in a gathering celebrating the return of the evicted Palestinian families. Although this area is still considered a military training area, the visitors were not stopped. Soldiers watched from a distance. As the men listened to speeches and interviews, the CPT women visited with the Palestinian women and children who stayed in their homes during the festivities. A big meal was cooked and served on heaping platters to feed well over two hundred people.

April 14 A CPT friend, joined Anita Fast and Rick Carter on a fact-finding walk around the settlement of Karmei Tzur They were unable to find the disputed fence, and spoke with Palestinian farmers in the area to find out information about the situation. One man from the area told them that the fence had been removed by soldiers. Upon arriving in the nearby Palestinian town of Beit Ummar, they visited the mother and brother of one of CPT's CSD families. The family reported that 6 dunams of the fenced land belonged to them, and showed the CPTers legal ownership documents dating back to the Ottoman Empire, as well as papers from each succeeding occupying force (British and Jordanian). The brother confirmed the removal of the fence, but said that the land is still considered disputed and the case is in court.

April 19 Anne Montgomery, Carter, and Fast went with a friend from Beit Hanina to Beit Ummar where they were met by Ahmed Salaye (a brother of one of CPT's CSD matches). Ahmed took them to visit some families who live near the Karmei Tzur settlement and received stop-work orders on April 6th. This is the first time that these families have had trouble with the military authorities. The families have been given a court date for May 23rd, and some Palestinian lawyers have taken their case. The families reported that an Israeli helicopter circles the area every two or three days to check on whether they are obeying the stop-work order. Ahmed emphasized that the people in the area who are trying to build homes are all refugees, and that some are orphans.

May 2000
May 5 Journalist Kawther Salaam informed the team that there were settlers at a Palestinian house near the Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida in Hebron. Anita Fast, Jamey Bouwmeester and Natasha Krahn went to the house and found a group of about seventy settlers outside the house of Fariel Abu Haikel. Fariel reported that a settler had tried to come up a hill through their yard and her daughter tried to stop him. The situation escalated and the settlers smashed the window of a neighbour's car, fought with the family and fired five shots into the air. Israeli soldiers eventually separated the two groups and arrested Fariel's husband and two of her sons. The dispute was over some olive groves that the settlers claim belong to them. They have previously attempted to start a settlement in these groves.

May 12 Rick Carter and Reinhard Kober joined a demonstration in Hebron organized by the Palestinian Prisoner's Society in support of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. The prisoners were in the twelfth day of a hunger strike. The prisoners are demanding to be released. Recently Israeli prisoners convicted of killing or attempting to kill Palestinians have been pardoned or have had their sentences reduced. No Palestinian prisoners have been considered for reduction of sentence, even though many of them are in prison for lesser acts.

May 15 There were clashes all over the West Bank as Palestinians commemorated Al Nakbah - The Catastrophe. Carter and Kober observed clashes between Palestinians and soldiers in Hebron. The clashes were unusually violent with soldiers shooting round after round of rubber bullets. All stores in the market were shut down and it was impossible to cross the border between H1- the Palestinian controlled area of Hebron - and H2 - the Israeli controlled area.

May 16 Clashes continued in Hebron today effectively shutting down H2 again.

May 17 Jane Adas, Natasha Krahn and Carter visited Fariel Abu Haikel to check out what had happened since the confrontation with the settlers (see above May 5). Fariel told CPT that her husband and two sons had spent four days in jail and were to appear in court in July. They had to pay 3000 shekels ($750US) to be released. Fariel commented, "I called the police to help me [with the settlers] and they arrested my family. Next time who should I call - the police, the army, journalists, CPT? Who?" She added wryly, "At least my husband and sons were in a five star prison."

As Ala', one of the sons who was arrested, was showing CPTers the contested olive groves, soldiers approached and asked them to leave. "These groves are quarantined," he explained. Adas said the team was just seeing some of the olive trees that settlers have cut down. The soldier said, "You have five minutes but then you must leave. If the settlers see you here they will cause problems." The team left after checking out the trees.

May 18 Carter and Adas visited the solidarity tent of the Palestinian Prisoners' Club. The tent in Hebron is part of a wider movement calling for the release of Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails. Major Palestinian political factions - Fatah, Hamas, PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) -- were represented. 1600 prisoners have been on a hunger strike since May 1st.

May 22 In Bethlehem, Carter witnessed a demonstration of several dozen Palestinian students marching towards Rachel's Tomb. They were prevented from reaching it by Palestinian police who erected a barricade

May 28 The team expected Cliff Kindy to arrive, and were concerned when he neither came nor sent word. They later learned that he was detained at Ben Gurion airport for 32 hours without access to a telephone, then sent back to the United States (See release, "CPTer Denied Entry...")

June 2000
On June 6 a CPT delegation and the team sell tomatoes in a Hebron wholesale market that, according to signed agreements, was to have opened last November but has remained closed. This is the third time CPT has sold tomatoes in this market. This time all the tomatoes are sold out and no one is arrested.

On June 11 the Hebron settler community celebrates the completion of the 3-story addition to the settlement of Beit Hadassah.

The team attends the first of a number of demonstrations sponsored by the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, Rabbis for Human Rights, Gush Shalom, and Bat Shalom. They are held in front of the home of Interior Minister Nathan Sharansky to protest two recent home demolitions in East Jerusalem that were ordered by his department. Spokespeople say that although they ordinarily do not approve of demonstrating at private homes, this particular issue justifies such a tactic.

On June 30 between 25-40 settlers surround Atta Jaber’s new house. Settlers tear off and demolish white stone blocks that are being laid on the outside of the house. Israeli police and soldiers arrive after one hour, and after another hour make the settlers leave. The Israeli military Civil Administration declare the area a closed-military zone and forbid Atta from continuing work on his house.

July 2000

July 1 Sara Reschly went to spend the night in the Beqa'a in response to reports that settlers had been harassing families in the area. At 10:00 pm settlers came to a Palestinian family's property, but were stopped by soldiers at the bottom of the hill leading to their home.

July 7 On night patrol, Anita Fast, Reschly and Grace Boyer were walking past the IDF military camp and a settler woman came out and asked them to come into the military camp to turn off a refrigerator light for her (on the Sabbath, Orthodox Jews cannot turn lights on or off). The CPTers followed her into the military base and turned off the light. This confirms earlier suspicions that there is now a civilian family living in the military camp which is on the land of the old Arab bus station in Hebron.

July 8 CPTers, Reschly and Boyer, went out to the Beqa'a valley to continue to follow-up on the situation with the terraces which were bulldozed two days earlier. They spoke with a CSD family in the area who reported that settlers have been coming regularly to his house and to his neighbor's house, walking around and praying on the land. He also told CPTers more about Thursday, July 6, when the bulldozer came. He reported that a bulldozer, accompanied by lots of police, army, and Civil Administration personnel arrived at 9:00 am. It bulldozed terraces that were not in use. The soldiers denied access to the reporters, saying that it was a closed military zone.

July 14 While on her way to meet journalist, Kawther Salaam, Boyer came across 3 TIPH cars and 15-20 soldiers in front of Beti Hadassah settlement. She learned that settlers had beaten up a Palestinian and he was taken to the hospital. Boyer and Salaam then visited the Commander of the Israeli Police in Hebron, who was home mourning the death of his mother.

July 15 At 7:00 in the evening, CPT received a phone call informing the team of clashes in Hebron. The team was in Bethlehem at the time, and immediately caught a taxi back to Hebron. When CPT arrived in Hebron, things had calmed down considerably, but the streets remained full of soldiers and police. The main road past the settlements, Shuhada Street, was closed to Palestinian traffic. Nait Alleman, Jamey Bouwmeester, Kathy Kamphoefner, and Paul Pierce entered an alleyway where 25 soldiers had 20 Palestinian youth, age 10-14, penned in. The soldiers wouldn't let any of the youth leave because they were worried that they would throw stones at settlers as the settlers returned to their homes. Fast and Reschly went to the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Matriarchs and spoke with local Palestinians about what had happened. They observed several parked cars which had been vandalized by settlers. CPTers were informed that at 6:00 pm, approximately 100 settlers from Kiryat Arba began marching through town to the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. Settlers threw stones at Palestinians along the way, and smashed parked cars. Palestinian youth threw stones at the settlers in retaliation. Soldiers physically separated the two groups. At the same time, about 60 settlers from the Hebron settlement of Beit Hadassah marched towards the Tomb, attacking a young Palestinian family and smashing goods in Palestinian store-fronts. They also vandalized the car of TIPH observers. The young Palestinian couple had to wait for several hours in the police station before they were allowed to make a report. Palestinian reporters were also attacked by settlers, and 7 of them were injured. Fast and Reschly were told that settlers were reacting to an attack on a young settler girl earlier that day. Others speculated that settlers were reacting to concessions being made by Israel at the Camp David negotiations.

August 2000

August 5 In the early evening Michael Goode and Bob Holmes followed Israeli soldiers running down Shuhada Street to the intersection near the Israeli settlement of Avraham Avinu . There they entered a crowd of soldiers, settlers and Palestinians and were informed by a soldier that two young settlers had thrown rocks off the roof of a shop onto Palestinian cars below. He said they would be arrested if caught. As Jim Satterwhite arrived the team noticed an ambulance further down the street where another crowd had gathered. Calling for more CPTers to come Goode, Holmes and Satterwhite headed in that direction. Witnesses explained that settler youth had damaged a parked Palestinian car and that the owner and other Palestinians neighbors had come out of their homes to protect their vehicles.

August 8 Jeremy Bergen and Satterwhite, while traveling to the village of Beit Ummar saw an IDF unit supervising the destruction of market stalls along bypass highway #60.

August 10 At 6 p.m. Nait Alleman and Goode observed a group of settlers, about 100-120 persons, proceeding down Shuhada Street. When the group reached the Palestinian market a young settler woman, claiming she had been hit with a thrown stone, began overturning cartons of fruit and vegetables. Alleman and Goode entered the market in an attempt to reduce the violence.

August 13 In the evening Bergen, Goode and Holmes noticed a crowd gathered near the high gate at Beit Hadassah. The team approached to find that settler women had attacked two Palestinian brothers, throwing glass bottles at them seriously injuring one over the left eye. Soldiers responded by standing between the settlers and the Palestinians. The team learned that the two Palestinians had a grant from the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee to renovate their abandoned home adjacent to Beit Hadassah. While moving materials into the house they were attacked. The military authority issued a verbal "stop-work" order to the Palestinians and insisted that they remove the building materials. A group of about 20 settlers were verbally harassing them. To speed things up some Palestinian journalists and CPTers helped carry cinder blocks out of the house.

August 19 Shabbat Shalom is the Jewish Sabbath greeting. It was Shabbat but there was little shalom today at the Hisbeh market on Shuhada Street. Natasha Krahn, Goode, Bob Holmes and Jeremy Bergen were engaged for several hours in non-violent intervention during yet another violent clash involving settlers, soldiers and Palestinians. See release August 21, "Violence in the Market."

August 20 The settlers held a remembrance ceremony at the Jewish cemetery marking the anniversary of the 1929 massacre of 69 Jews in Hebron. Several buses carrying settlers from Kiryat Arba came for the ceremony. Fearing further violence CPT patrolled the streets before, during and after the ceremony, but no confrontations took place.

August 26 The tension on Shuhada Street this Shabbat was electric all day given the frequency of clashes on Saturdays during the summer, and the fact that there were hundreds of settlers and Jewish Israeli visitors in Hebron for a concert that evening. On Shuhada Street Palestinian vehicular traffic was restricted and some stores were closed. Twice the usual number of soldiers stood at the checkpoints and patrolled the street. Media reporters with cameras waited on every corner. CPT was on constant patrol throughout the day and night. Although the tension was palpable, there were no clashes.

September 2000
The team hears a lot about the problems of education in Hebron and surrounding areas. The team hears about the lack of schools and how children must walk a long time to get to the schools that are available. The focus is on the Qilkis school and trying to get a permit for it. Although the team talks with the Bedawie brothers, who are building the school, about setting up a tent and teaching in that but the demolition order on the school is rescinded before this plan goes into action.

The team starts fasting and praying on Saturdays as a response to the increased settler violence that has been happening in Hebron.

On September 28 Ariel Sharon visits the Haram Al-Sharif, also known as the Temple Mount, in a assertion of Jewish sovereignty over the area. Many clashes break out in the entire West Bank as a result of his visit.

October 2000
The clashes and unrest sparked by Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount continue all month. Hebron is under curfew the entire month. On October 30 it is lifted "for good" only to be re-imposed again the next day.

The first week of October CPTers observe the clashes and visit with families living under curfew. On October 4 the military begins firing into the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Abu Sneineh and Harit iSheik. After that shooting continues almost every night. CPTers work on getting curfew lifted so that families can have access to food, and visit with families who have soldiers posted on their roof. The team is not able to worship in Jerusalem for most of October so they worship at home.

Because of the clashes many of the border points in Hebron are re-inforced with cement blocks. There is intense closure on all of the West Bank most of this month. On October 12 the Israelis start bombing in Ramallah and Gaza in retaliation for the deaths of two soldiers, killed by a mob in Ramallah. The American and Canadian governments calls for all of their citizens to leave the Occupied Territories. Bombing of various towns and villages continues throughout the month with especially heavy bombardments in Beit Jala and Beit Sahour.

The team continues fasting and praying on Saturdays throughout the month, concluding on October 28. The team notices an increase in racism against Israelis and hatred towards Americans. The team verifies reports of tanks at one of the schools in Hebron that has been taken over by the military as an army post. They also document the bulldozing of roads at Halhoul to prevent access in and out of Hebron.

On October 17 the Sharm El-Sheikh peace agreement is reached between Arafat and Barak but it doesn’t make much difference. A British photojournalist, Julia Guest, spends three days with the team at the end of October documenting the experiences and the work of the team. At the end of October a taxi driver is killed in Bab i Zaweyya, while washing his car. Some CPT team members arrive about five minutes after it happened. The team later learns that the man had driven CPTers out to the Beqa’a Valley for CSD visits. Children can’t attend school this month and are concerned about passing the year.

November 2000
The curfew in Hebron continues for most of this month although a few times it is lifted for twenty-four hours or more before it is once again re-imposed. Shooting into the neighbourhoods of Abu Sneineh and Harit iSheik continues with most of the shooting aimed at Harit iSheik. CPTers spends some nights in houses in these neighbourhoods, with families that are being shot at. Although a ceasefire is declared on November 3 it doesn’t make much difference. This month more heavy artillery, such as tanks, is used.

The team discusses and implements a short term presence in Beit Jala to draw attention to the intense bombing that is happening there.

A delegation of seven people comes to see the situation. They spend the first few days in Jerusalem before coming to Hebron. Once in Hebron they help maintain a presence in the Beqa’a Valley with Ismail and Abdel Jawad Jaber’s families. Settlers from Givat Ha Harsina and Kiryat Arba have nightly demonstrations, throwing rocks at houses, pulling up irrigation pipes, uprooting plants and causing other violence, hoping to scare the Palestinians away.

On November 3 a car bomb explodes in Jerusalem killing two people.

The closure of the West Bank is intensified. On November 12 three CPTers are made to get out of the taxi they are in and the IDF slashes the tires as a punishment for the driver trying to find a way out of Hebron.

CPTers participates in three international demonstrations against the violence of the past months.

BEIT JALA CHRONOLOGY Dec. 2000-Feb. 2001

(Hebron continues below)

December 2000

On December 1, Anne Montgomery and Pierre Shantz begin a CPT presence in the village of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem. Because of its location across a valley from the Israeli settlement of Gilo, Palestinian gunmen have sometimes shot at the settlement from locations in Beit Jala, which draws heavy retaliatory Israeli shelling into civilian Palestinian neighborhoods in the village.

Team members document the damage of homes from Israeli gunfire. Over 400 homes had been destroyed since the beginning of the current spate of violence. There is heavy shelling in the neighborhood of CPT’s apartment many nights. Windows are broken in the team’s home on December 5 and on December 11 three sides of the building are damaged. The team covers remaining windows with sandbags and joins neighbors in more protected parts of their building until bedtime.

Team members meet with the Beit Jala Mayor, a conflict resolution specialist, an evangelical pastor, and other local contacts, and tour nearby refugee camps. They speak with several members of the international press about their presence in the town.

The team calls on churches in the U.S. and Canada to observe five miutes of darkness and silence during their Advent and Christmas and services in solidarity with the people under siege in the Bethelehem/Beit Jala area.

January 2001
On January 3, Montgomery and Jamey Bouwmeester tour damaged homes and factories in nearby Beit Sahour with a Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) delegation.

On January 8 there is a momentary burst of Palestinian rifle fire from near the team’s house, aimed at Gilo settlement. There is no return fire from the Israelis

As of January 12 there has been no shelling into Beit Jala for almost four weeks, and the team closes the CPT Beit Jala project.

February 2001
While riding to a restaurant in Bethlehem with friends from Beit Jala on February 10, Pierre Shantz is almost hit by shots from an Israeli army base. Art Arbour, Rebecca Johnson, and Jamey Bouwmeester, waiting at the restaurant, watch tracer bullets streak across the sky into Beit Jala for an hour.

On February 19, Shantz and Johnson document damage at a Palestinian home from shelling received from Israeli military the night before.

HEBRON CHRONOLOGY CONTINUES

December 2000
Curfew is imposed in the Israeli-controlled (H2) sector of Hebron for 16 days of the month. On December 22 Palestinians are permitted into Ibrahimi Mosque for the first time in almost three months .

On the afternoon of December 1, there is heavy Israeli gunfire into Hebron’s central Bab iZaweyya area and the neighborhood of Harit iSheik; heavy shooting into several Palestinian neighborhoods continues through the evening. December 4 is the first time in several weeks the team has heard no shelling at night.

Heavy clashes erupt December 16; Israeli soldiers fire tear gas into downtown Hebron to disperse the crowds.

The home of CSD partner Atta Jabber in the Beqa’a Valley is invaded by settlers December 8. They force the family from their home and burn their possessions. In a confrontation between settlers and youth from neighboring Palestinian homes the next day, 13-year-old Mansour Naji Jabber is shot in the left hand and abdomen by a settler. He is hospitalized in critical condition in Jerusalem.

The Israeli military ordered the settlers from the Jabber home at 1:30 a.m. December 10, declaring the house a "closed military zone," preventing the family’s return before March 1.

In the following days, settlers mass on the road below the Jabber house, shoot into the air, throw stones and block passage of Palestinian cars on the bypass road. Across the road from Atta Jabber’s, settlers also pelt the home of his father with stones on several occasions.

In Hebron, the team notes other instances of settler violence: Bob Holmes’ camera is kicked out of his hands. Water pipes and shops on Shuhada Street are vandalized. The team’s phone is out of service from December 5 until January 2 after settlers cut a trunk line serving almost 1200 phones in Hebron’s Old City.

The team reports several incidents of soldier violence also. On December 11, CPTers investigate the sound of gunfire and discover that an Israeli soldier has shot an emotionally disturbed Palestinian in both legs. On December 22 a soldier levels his gun at Gary Brooks and forces him against a wall, releasing him after about five minutes.

Team members note increasingly difficult travel to Jerusalem, as taxis begin to take back roads to avoid huge rubble barricades erected by the Israeli army to impede access into and out of Hebron.

January, 2001
Hebron’s Old City is under curfew for 8 days of the month.

When Bob Holmes responds to news that a mentally ill man has been shot for violating curfew near the Israeli settlement of Avraham Avinu on January 1, he sees a pool of fresh blood, sprinkled with sand. A human rights worker tells Holmes that the man had had his foot nearly severed by bullets and had lain on the ground for nearly 15 minutes before receiving medical help.

Shelling into neighborhoods by the Israeli military continues, with heavy fire January 26 and 31. Team members visit homes damaged by the shelling. One house had also sustained damage from soldiers who had occupied it December 11 through 24. Holmes visits the family of a boy who was killed when Harit iSheik was shelled.

In the Beqa’a Valley, Art Gish stays at the Abdel Jewad Jabber house. The house continues to be a target of periodic stone-throwing by settlers. On January 9, team members document the Israeli military bulldozing a new road within feet of the rear of the Atta Jabber home

Palestinians are no longer allowed to walk on Shuhada Street past the Israeli settlement of Beit Hadassah; several times team members intervene with soldiers to ask that Palestinians be allowed to pass; on the evening of January 22 settler boys throw stones at Shantz as he walks there.

Vendor stalls near Avraham Avinu are pushed back by soldiers and stone barricades erected to limit access to the market

February 2001
The Old City is under curfew for a total of 14 days this month.

The team hears heavy gunfire, including shelling from tanks, into the neighborhoods of Abu Sneineh and Harit iSheik on several occasions. On Febrary 16, two un-armed Palestinians are killed. The team documents punctured water pipes near their apartment. On February 17, a CPT delegation returns home from a meeting in Harit iSheik between rounds of bullets being fired into the area, and on the same day gunfire is reported strafing the main intersection of Bab iZaweyya.

Closures of roads leading into and out of Hebron and surrounding villages are tightened. As Pierre Shantz returns from Beit Jala February 14, he and fellow passengers dig away a pile of dirt and stones that impedes their taxi from entering onto the main road. They are interrupted by a soldier who threatens them with a gun. Later Shantz’s taxi is among many Palestinian vehicles halted on the highway by some 20 teenage settlers near Efrat settlement; and as he continues on his way he witnesses Israeli police firing canisters of tear gas into a group of Palestinians walking around another roadblock. The trip, which normally takes about 30 minutes, takes 2 ½ hours.

A bulldozer movers several new cement barricades to block access to the market near Avraham Avinu..

Team members observe sporadic clashes on the road towards Abu Sneineh and on Shuhada Street. The afternoon of February 16, Holmes and Jamey Bouwmeester observe over 40 soldiers restraining male settler teenagers on Shuhada Street, who they say are trying to enter the neighborhood of Abu Sneineh, which is under Palestinian-Authority control.

The team learns that on February 20 a Palestinian woman is arrested for stabbing and lightly wounding an Israeli Yeshiva student near the settlement of Beit Romano.

Team members document the harassment of Palestinian families near Tel Rumeida and Kiryat Arba by Israeli soldiers and settlers.

In Beit Ummar, two partially-constructed homes are demolished by Israeli authorities on February 20. Team members, along with CSD co-ordinator Rich Meyer and members of a CPT delegation, respond as soon as possible but not before the area is declared a "closed military zone."

The visiting CPT delegation participates in a 4-day conference sponsored by the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre in Jerusalem. Activities of the conference include a CPT-led bus tour of the Hebron district; participation in the weekly "Women in Black" vigil against the Occupation in West Jerusalem; and a non-violent challenge of the Bethlehem/Jerusalem checkpoint with Israeli activists.

On Ash Wednesday, February 28, the team initiates a Lenten Calendar of observance and prayer for people and events associated with Israel-Palestine, and some members begin a Lenten Fast.

March 2001
The team records five days of curfew in the month.

The shooting of an Israeli settler in front of Avraham Avinu by a Palestinian gunman on March 10 spurs demonstrations by settlers. Settler youth hurl stones into the Palestinian market, upset vendor stalls and stomp on vegetables. The Israeli military responds with machine gun and tank fire into the neighborhood of Abu Sneineh. The next day, settlers parade in front of Avraham Avinu, and Palestinian youth throw stones and roll burning tires in the direction of soldiers stationed near Shuhada Street.

Team members document damage from the previous night’s shelling on March 11. The father of a family in Abu Sneineh was shot in the head while inside his house.

On March 26, shots fired from the Palestinian neighborhood of Abu Sneineh kill a ten-month old Israeli settler baby in Avraham Avinu and wound her father. In retaliation the Israeli military heavily shells the neighbourhood. During the next two days, settlers try to enter the Abu Sneineh neighborhood, but are prevented by Israeli soldiers, who bring in about 200 reinforcements. The settlers set fire to several shops near Avraham Avinu, and burn nine cars in Abu Sneineh. There is sporadic shooting from the Palestinian neighborhood and heavy shelling and shooting by Israeli military for several hours during the next two days.

In Beit Ummar CPTers find the recently completed home of Wajeh Abu Maria reduced to rubble on March 13. Bulldozers complete the demolition of another house, and move across the road to destroy structures at the Love and Peace Nursery. More than thirty soldiers and military police, military jeeps, and two armoured personnel carriers with mounted machine guns accompany the demolition action.

The neighborhood of Tel Rumeida faces encroachment by Israeli settlers and soldiers. Rick Polhamus and Pierre Shantz photograph settler building activity. Dianne Roe spends the night with the Abu Haikel family where settlers try almost nightly to break into the house.

During the month, the team participates in several non-violent actions with Israelis and Palestinians. On March 12, Shantz and Greg Rollins join a 500-person march organized by the faculty and Palestinian students of Bir Zeit University in Ramallah. Despite being met with tear gas fired by the Israeli military, the activists remove three dirt and rock roadblocks. On March 13, Rick Carter joins about 80 Israelis in front of the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem, calling for the end to the occupation. Ten days later, CPT members join about 150 Israelis and internationals in an action organized by Israeli peace groups near the Palestinian village of Rantis northwest of Jerusalem. The group successfully remove a dirt and stone roadblock with their bare hands after soldiers and Israeli police confiscate their tools. During the action, Polhamus and Shantz are detained by the police, along with two Israelis. The next day Polhamus and Shantz return to the Rantis checkpoint and see that concrete barriers have replaced the dirt roadblocks. Later, they join a non-violent demonstration of about 50-60 people, mostly Palestinian, to pass through the Aram checkpoint north of Jerusalem. Soldiers fire tear gas and percussion grenades into the crowd, and beat several demonstrators, some severely. The same day, Roe and Rebecca Johnson join about forty Palestinian women in a march across the roadblock at Halhoul to the Israeli by-pass road, Route 60. About two dozen Israeli soldiers block their passage, pushing them back about 100 meters to the other side of the roadblock.

The team documents incidents of soldier harassment of Palestinians. On March 15, a shopkeeper near Ibrahimi Mosque tells team members that Israeli soldiers have thrown a percussion grenade into the courtyard of a nearby Palestinian boys’ school, injuring six children.

April 2001
Hebron’s H2 area is under curfew for 14 days in April.

Settler retaliation continues in the aftermath of the killing of the Israeli baby in March. In the early hours of April 2 that two shops in front of Avriham Avinu are blown up. When Israeli soldiers clear a crowd gathered to survey the damage, a young Palestinian acquaintance of the team is arrested on charges of attacking a soldier. Pierre Shantz attends his court case on April 10; he is sentenced to two months in jail. A Palestinian store beneath Beit Hadassah settlement and a mosque in the Old City are also vandalized on April 2.

On Tel Rumeida team members visit Palestinian families and document damage that occurred when settlers broke into a house during the family’s absence. New settlement construction continues on top of an archeological site in the area.

Action continues around the Abu Sneineh neighborhood. Dianne Roe spends the night of April 11 with a Palestinian family on who has suffered from the Israeli gunfire barrages that follow Palestinian sniper fire.

On the evening of April 15, shots are again fired from Abu Sneineh. Enraged settlers run up the hill towards Abu Sneineh, but are stopped by soldiers. Following the incident, heavy Israeli fire is returned until 1:00 a.m. the following morning. During the shooting, a friend of the team’s calls to say three members of her family are injured by Israeli shooting. An ambulance, delayed by gunfire, arrives during the call. Bob Holmes, Rick Polhamus, and Greg Rollins, observing the action from CPT’s apartment roof, witness a settler shooting into Abu Sneineh from a balcony in the Avraham Avinu complex. The next day, Roe visits the injured members of the Palestinian family in the hospital.

Settlers set up a camp at the foot of the street to Abu Sneineh, preventing reporters, Palestinians and international observers from passing. At 3:30 a.m. April 20, Anita Fast watches from the CPT apartment roof as police and soldiers prevent about one hundred Israeli settlers from going up the hill into Abu Sneineh. At 5:00 the same morning, the team is awakened by a bulldozer placing cement barriers across the street in front of the CPT apartment, blocking access to the Palestinian chicken market from Shuhada St. Later they learn that 24 settlers were arrested overnight. The settlers have moved their camp up Shuhada St. to a location less vulnerable to Palestinian gunfire.

Exchanges of Palestinian gunfire and Israeli military retaliation occur in other areas as well. While in a taxi on their way home from Bethlehem April 17, Holmes, Anne Montgomery and Polhamus are pinned for four hours by heavy fire near the Israeli settlement of Al Khader. When they arrive in Hebron about 11 p.m., shooting is so intense at Bab iZaweyya that they spend the night with a friend in another part of the city. Heavy shooting in Hebron continues until 2:00 a.m.

The threat of home demolitions by Israeli authorities continues in the Hebron district. On April 4, Polhamus, Rollins, and Shantz respond to a call about impending home demolitions in Wadi el-Ghroos, on the outskirts of Hebron,. Five nearly completed Palestinian homes are demolished. Shantz is slapped and pushed by an officer while observing the demolition. He is