25 April 2009
On the evenings of the 23rd & 24th April, Israeli soldiers entered the homes of Palestinian residents in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. During these illegal raids the houses were searched and the families harassed before the soldiers left with no evidence of law infringement of any kind.
On Thursday 23rd at 9pm soldiers began their operation; it lasted 3 hours with five Palestinian houses being searched. The following day, Friday 24th, this move was replicated, with a further five houses searched. A number of these families were forced into a single room and sometimes made to wait outside their houses during the raids, oblivious to what was happening inside.
These raids are not the first of their kind in Tel Rumeida. Every month the soldiers enter numerous houses in the neighborhood, under the pretense of searching for incriminating weapons. Information has been received from former soldiers that this method of action is used simply for army training, violating not only the Geneva convention, but also Israeli law itself.
The Palestinian families in this area have long suffered from regular harassment from the Israeli army, not to mention constant settler violence. With checkpoints situated all over the neighborhood, detention for hours on end is an everyday occurrence for the Palestinians living here. To make matters worse, the army offers them no protection from the aggressive, and sometimes wild, behavior of the settlers.