International Solidarity Movement Nonviolence. Justice. Freedom.
5 April, 2009
Juwayya, South Hebron Hills, West Bank
[Note: According to the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and numerous United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law.]
At 4:00 pm, Israeli soldiers and the Ma’on settlement security guard took three Palestinian boys, ages 10, 11, and 14, and transported them Ma’on settlement. Soldiers delivered the children to six masked settlers who beat the children, kicking and punching them. At 4:45, the children arrived back in their village, after the settlers allowed them to leave to walk home through the hills alone.
Earlier the same day settlers shot at a teenage Palestinian shepherd as he grazed his sheep near Juwayya. This is the second time settlers have shot at Juwayya residents over the last ten days. On 25 March, twenty Israeli settlers left the settlement of Ma’on and shot at Palestinian shepherd grazing their sheep on land belonging to the village of Juwayya. During the incident, four Israeli soldiers and the security guard of the Ma’on settlement were present and did not interfere with the settlers. The shepherds refused to leave their land, despite the danger.
“Feel my heart beat,” the mother of the children said to a Christian Peacemaker Teams volunteer. “Really, we are afraid of the settlers.”
