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Hebron Update 5-10 February 2007
By: CPT Hebron
17 February 2007

http://www.cpt.org

On team during this period: Bill Baldwin, Janet Benvie, Barbara Martens, Abigail Ozanne and Dianne Roe.

Monday 5 February

In the morning, Dianne Roe and Barbara Martens attended a demonstration at the invitation of a CPT partner. The purpose of the demonstration was to show that Hebronites want their leaders to work collaboratively and end the frictions between Hamas and Fatah that are endangering Palestinian unity. About 250-300 people representing both genders walked peacefully several blocks with Palestinian flags and signs to Manara Square.

Tuesday 6 February

Jan Benvie and Abigail Ozanne attended a peace conference in At-Tuwani. Nomfundo Walaza, a psychologist on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from South Africa, talked about nonviolence, truth, and reconciliation in her country and the possibilities for this in Palestine. (See CPT release: Non Violence workshop in At Tuwani.)

Wednesday 7 February

Roe and Bill Baldwin, on an early afternoon patrol, met a group of Israelis on their way up the hill to visit the home of a Palestinian who faces regular harassment from settlers. `I knew you would not get in,` the Palestinian told the group after Israeli soldiers turned them away from the home. `I saw Sarah Martzel in front of her house. She is the boss of all of the soldiers, and when I saw her I knew the soldiers would prevent your visit.`

On the way back down the hill Roe received a phone call from Martens that Israeli soldiers were holding two young Palestinian boys, 13 and 15 at Beit Romano checkpoint. The soldiers and police detained Benvie, Roe and Ozanne, for taking pictures and refusing to leave the boys, but released them about an hour later. Soldiers released the boys five hours later. (See CPT release: Israeli Soldiers detain Palestinian boys and CPTers, 8 February, 2007.)

Thursday 8 February

Abdel Hadi Hantash visited the team to relate that he had just come from Idhna that morning. The Israeli army had issued five Stop Building orders in one day to residents of the area between the Green Line and the Apartheid Wall. (See Hebron District urgent action: Five families facing loss of homes. Contact embassies in Tel Aviv, 10 February 2007.)

A friend informed the team that soldiers had invaded a house in the souk. Ozanne and Roe discovered that at 11:00am soldiers threatened the family, briefly holding the three-year-old son at gunpoint, and took over one room of the house.

At 4:15 Benvie, Ozanne and Martens arrived at the Duboyya Intersection of Bab iZaweyya on afternoon street patrol to find a tense situation with youths throwing stones and rocks and one jeep of soldiers quickly being re-enforced by two other jeeps and snipers on the roof of a Palestinian home.

At varying times, soldiers in the street fired sound bombs, percussion grenades, and had their guns trained on the youth who were firing from two directions. An older Palestinian shopkeeper contained some of the youth. Both Benvie and Martens spoke to the soldiers urging them not to harm the youths, who were not armed as they were. When the youths stopped throwing stones, the soldiers would shoot a grenade to stir them up again. Soldiers detained and then arrested an 18-year-old Palestinian after he talked back to a soldier. By 5:45 the crowd had thinned, the last jeep left, and the CPTers returned to the apartment. ISM told Martens that soldiers and youths had clashed since 11:00a.m. with the soldiers shooting teargas and rubber bullets.

Friday, 9 February

At 10:30 am Roe and Benvie joined Bnei Avraham (Hebrew for Children of Abraham) who were leading a tour of nearly 100 Israelis and internationals down Shuhada Street and up to Tel Rumeida to show solidarity with Palestinians who live there and face daily harassment from the Israeli settlers.

Martens, Ozanne and Baldwin observed a clash between Israeli border police and Palestinian youth in Bab iZaweyya. Palestinian youths started throwing stones around noon, and soldiers responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Shortly after 1:00p.m., soldiers hit and shoved children close to where the CPTers were standing. Ozanne intervened between a soldier and a boy, but the soldier threatened her saying, `if you don`t shut up, I will kill you all!` Soldiers then spread out, moving toward the market, chasing Palestinian youths.

The CPTers observed soldiers detaining a young man. A number of older men were restraining the youths. The team witnessed soldiers throw stones at Palestinians. The CPTers left around 3pm when they determined that they could not help the situation.

Saturday, 10 February

At about 1:00 p.m. CPT received a call to come to Tel Rumeida, where soldiers were holding two children 13 years of age, hands tied behind their backs. Benvie and Martens were preparing to leave the apartment to respond, when a neighbor alerted them that there was big trouble just around the corner from the CPT apartment, in the Old City.

The neighbor accompanied Benvie and Martens. A Palestinian man lay handcuffed and unconscious on the ground. Benvie observed Israeli soldiers hitting another handcuffed man. Later bystanders told them that the soldiers had beaten the unconscious man, because he had refused to go with them to the army camp. There were about 30 soldiers present, who tried to prevent Benvie and Martens taking photographs and who surrounded the two men. Martens insisted that the man receive medical attention and an ambulance. Instead, a military jeep arrived, and the soldiers tossed him, hands tied behind his back, into the back of the jeep. A soldier told Martens he was a military medic. As the soldiers were leaving, they tossed teargas into the tunnel even though the crowd was not acting in any threatening way.

Soldiers prevented Issa Amro and the program coordinator of Hebron Mental Health from entering the Old City to attend a meeting with Benvie and Martens in the CPT apartment so instead they met at the office of the Hebron Mental Health project. Amro and the program coordinator discussed with the CPTers ways to address the difficulties in implementing the `Sports for Street Kids Project`.

Benvie and Martens heard shots and smelled teargas, and saw 2 ambulances in Bab iZaweyya when they were leaving in the taxi for Jerusalem at 4:30 p.m.

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical initiative to support violence reduction efforts around the world. To learn more about CPT`s peacemaking work, visit our website www.cpt.org Photos of our projects are at www.cpt.org/gallery A map of the center of Hebron is at http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/fullMaps_Sa.nsf/0/5618737E38C0B3DE8525708C004BA584/$File/ocha_OTS_hebron_oPt010805.pdf?OpenElement

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