Tag: At-Tuwani - Page 6 - International Solidarity Movement

Israeli settler stabs Palestinian in At-Tuwani

21 March 2011 | Operation Dove

At-Tuwani – On the morning of March 21st, 2011 soon after 7 o’clock a Palestinian man from the village of Tuba was attacked while he was going with his donkey to the village of At-Tuwani. Not far from the first house of the village a masked settler, coming from the Havat Ma’on outpost, ambushed him and stabbed him in his right arm and in his chest.

An inhabitant of At-Tuwani witnessed the incident from a close distance and immediately informed the other inhabitants and the internationals present in the village . The Palestinian stabbed was treated and transported to the hospital in Hebron, while the soldiers and the Israeli police questioned the witnesses and gathered evidence. The Palestinian who witnessed the attack claims he recognized the assailant, one of the settlers who took part to the riots on March 19th, 2011 in At-Tuwani (http://snipurl.com/27o3a8).

At press time the Palestinian wounded is stable.

[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]

Operation Dove maintains an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Provocations and attacks by Israeli settlers obstruct Palestinian nonviolent action in the South Hebron Hills: two Palestinians are arrested

19 March 2011 | Operation Dove

At-Tuwani – Saturday morning, around 9:00 am, during a nonviolent action, the inhabitants of At-Tuwani, accompanied by several international, planted some olive trees in Palestinian-owned Humra valley. In addition, during the action some shepherds of the village decided to graze their flocks in the area.

Immediately, several Israeli army jeep reached the area to monitor the situation. Soon after, settlers from the Havat Ma’on outpost, some of them masked, began to approach and provoke the Palestinians. They walked among their flocks and close to the women who were gathering herbs in the fields. At about 10:30, three young settlers chased a Palestinian man who was returning home with his donkey through Meshaha hill. Luckily, the Palestinian man was just scared by the settlers. The action could still be carried out successfully despite the provocations and the tension due to the presence of about twenty settlers.

The soldiers tried to keep the settlers away, repeatedly asking them to return in the outpost. At around 10:50 an officer of the Border Police brought an evacuation order declaring the zone “closed military area“. The Palestinians, after some protests, went back to At-Tuwani. The settlers returned in the outpost, they splitted in two groups: some of them attacked the Palestinians and their flocks on their way back to the village, while others headed toward At-Tuwani masked and accompanied by dogs, threatening the house closest to the outpost.

The situation deteriorated and some Palestinians replied to the settlers’ attacks defending themselves. The soldiers tried to force the Palestinians back to the village and during the riots they launched two sound bombs. Two young Palestinians were arrested and a third, after being pinned to the ground by several soldiers, felt faint and went by ambulance to the hospital in Yatta. The other inhabitants of At-Tuwani and all the internationals were forced by soldiers to return to the village.

Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Israeli settlers chase Palestinian children after Israeli military fails to provide escort

08 February 2011 | Operation Dove & Christian Peacemaker Team

At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills, West Bank – On the afternoon of 7 February 2011, three Israeli settlers from Havat Ma’on outpost chased a group of 12 Palestinian schoolchildren who were walking home from school. The Israeli military had failed to arrive to escort the schoolchildren, forcing the children to take a longer path without the army’s escort.

Shortly after the schoolchildren and Christian Peacemaker Teams(CPT) volunteers set out on the path towards Tuba and Maghayir al-Abeed villages, Israeli settlers, two of whom were masked, emerged from the grouping of trees which encompasses Havat Ma’on and began moving towards the children. Upon seeing the settlers, the children turned and sprinted to distance themselves from the settlers. Several children began crying and screaming in fear as they ran away from the settlers, one young girl began shaking uncontrollably as soon as she stopped running from the settlers.

The Israeli Border Police, who were located on an adjacent hill for the duration of the incident, arrived at the scene after the Palestinian children had safely distanced themselves from the settlers. The Border Police stopped and spoke with the settlers, two of whom remained masked during the entire conversation with the authorities.

The Border Police then approached the edge of At-Tuwani village where the children, CPT volunteers, and Palestinian adults had gathered. Border Police officers spoke with a CPT volunteer and an At-Tuwani resident, seeking to understand what had happened. After hearing their accounts but refusing to hear the role the settlers had played, the officers suggested that the Palestinian children, internationals, and At-Tuwani villagers were the ones causing problems, rather than the settlers.

Before the children had set out on the longer path without the military escort, CPT volunteers had called the Israeli military four times inquiring as to the whereabouts of the escort. During CPT’s final call to the military – more than 30 minutes after their initial call – the military dispatch office said that they hadn’t yet called the soldiers, who were to provide the escort, because they were too busy and had more important duties to perform.

Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Israeli settlers lay in front of tractors; attempt to prohibit Palestinian agricultural work

23 January 2011 | Operation Dove & Christian Peacemaker Teams

At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills, West Bank – On Saturday, 22nd of January, Palestinian farmers successfully plowed fields in Khoruba valley, despite heavy harassment by settlers from the nearby settlement of Ma’on.

In the early morning, about twenty farmers from At-Tuwani started sowing seed and plowing fields in Khoruba valley, southeast from At-Tuwani. Soon thereafter, five settlers arrived from nearby Havat Ma’on outpost and positioned themselves in front of the tractors, in an attempt to prevent the farmers from completing their work. As more settlers arrived, tempers flared and the farmers attempted to move the settlers and physically block them from interfering with the land cultivation.

Approximately thirty minutes later, Israeli soldiers and Border Police arrived and immediately stopped the tractors from plowing. The Israeli forces took the ID cards of three farmers while removing both settlers and farmers from the immediate vicinity of the tractors.

The Israeli District Coordinating Office (DCO), the branch of the Israeli military responsible for the coordination of civilian affairs, later confirmed the right of Palestinians to plow the fields but the Border Police requested that all Palestinians and international peace activists leave the area, except for the farmers directly involved in the agricultural work.

Three settler youths moved from Khoruba valley to an area one kilometer south where they stopped another tractor from plowing and proceeded to throw stones at a Palestinian shepherd and his flock. Israeli forces again intervened, removing the settler youths from the area.

After the completion of the agricultural work, one Palestinian farmer was taken to the Kiryat Arba police station for questioning, and later released, after a settler made a formal complaint that he was assaulted.

An international delegation with four British MPs, was present for part of the incident and spoke with Palestinian farmers, Israeli forces, and an Israeli settler.

In the last five years, through several coordinated nonviolent actions, Palestinians from At-Tuwani and Yatta have successfully cultivated fields previously made inaccessible due to settler violence and harassment, Through the reacquisition of this land, Palestinians are asserting their right to the land and working to ensure their food security for the coming seasons.

Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Israeli soldiers detain five Palestinian Schoolboys in South Hebron Hills

21 November 2010 | Christian Peacemaker Team

At-Tuwani – Claiming that the children were throwing stones, Israeli soldiers detained five Palestinian schoolboys.

Since the beginning of 2005, the children from the village of Tuba wait every morning for an Israeli army escort to accompany them to the school in At-Tuwani, along the shortest road that goes through the Israeli settlement of Ma’on and the illegal outpost of Havat Ma’on. The escort’s task is to protect the children from the violence of the Israeli settlers of Havat Ma’on.

On the morning of November 21st, Palestinian schoolchildren had been waiting for over an hour near the settlement chicken barns when, at about 8:50 am, the soldiers arrived to escort the children to school past Havat Ma’on. Instead of escorting the children, however, the soldiers stopped and talked with the settlement security guard while the children waited on the road nearby. While the soldiers and the security guard were talking, two settlers passed the children.

After waiting for 15 minutes, two of the schoolchildren left for school on their own, unaccompanied. The other 13 children waited for another five minutes, then turned around and left to head back home. The soldiers remained with the security guard.

As the children were arriving at their villages of Tuba and Maghayir Al-Abeed, the same soldiers drove up, and, shoving away two internationals from Christian Peacemaker Teams, grabbed five boys and put them in the army vehicle. The soldiers took the boys back to the settlement barns, where, according to the children, they asked them no questions, but made them sit against a barn. After holding them for 15 minutes, the soldiers released the boys.

As the boys were leaving, the captain told the internationals “tell the children’s parents that if the boys throw stones again, it won’t be like this time. There will be problems.”

“I was waiting with the kids for over an hour, and I never saw them throw stones” said Joe Yoder, member of CPT. “Even if they were throwing stones while they were playing around, I don’t see how that’s an offense that merits soldiers coming into their home and carrying them off like criminals. If the army would just arrive on time, then there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.”

Schoolchildren from Tuba and Maghayir al Abeed rely on the Israeli army to escort them past the settlement of Ma’on and the illegal outpost of Havat Ma’on, where Israeli settlers have committed acts of violence against the schoolchildren in the past.

These kinds of incidents are the evidence of the Israeli military escort’s failure to protect the children from settler’s violence. In the last school year, the children were attacked 19 times, they waited for the escort 53 hours and they missed almost 27 hours of classes.