At 1:15pm on September 1, 2006, in Tel Rumeida, Hebron, two Human Rights Workers (HRWs) were approached by a young boy of approximately six or seven years, and an older man, later identified as his father, Idris Zahadi. The boy lifted his shirt, displaying a contusion on his chest, and said something in Arabic that the HRWs were unable to understand. The young boy communicated that he had been injured, but did not speak either of the HRWs’ languages with sufficient fluency to describe the details to them since they did not speak much Arabic. With permission from Mr. Zahadi, one HRW photographed the victim’s injuries: a small contusion with broken skin on the left temple, and a larger contusion without skin breakage on the lower left chest. The victim then described the incident to his father, who related the events to the HRWs in a videotaped interview.
About one hour earlier, Mr. Zahadi’s son was walking to his home, which requires that he pass in front of the Beit Hadassah settlement on Shuhadah Street. An adult settler with a beard and glasses, possibly in his late twenties, began throwing stones at the boy, who was very afraid. He was struck by two of the stones, in his head and his chest. Mr. Zahadi was not at home at the time, and only found out about the attack upon his return.
Mr. Zahadi was obviously upset by the attack on his son. After finishing his description, he added, “Every day is like this; the soldier can’t do anything! Even if he has bullets it’s no good. You need a policeman here, not the soldiers.”
On Saturday August 26th, at approximately 12 noon, a Palestinian family in Tel Rumeida, (in the Israeli controlled H2 district of Hebron) noticed a group of settler boys setting fire to the dry grass in front of their home. This land contains many olive trees and settlers have attempted to burn down these trees on many occasions by starting grass fires. The family put the fire out with water but the kids returned and started a fire which spread to the center of a large olive tree. By the time the family noticed, the fire was so hot that they could not put it out by themselves. Phone requests to the DCO (District Command Office of the military) to allow firefighters from the Palestinian municipality of Hebron to enter into H2 to put the fire out were denied.
The family tried to solicit the help of soldiers who poured a white, firefighting powder on the burning tree. This attempt at putting the fire out was not successful and eventually the whole tree was destroyed. Soldiers attempted to charge the family 600 shekels ($135) for the firefighting powder and the family refused. The soldiers threatened to come back and confiscate the family’s television is they refused to pay.
In addition, settlers set the ground on fire in another location next to this same family’s house. No olive trees were destroyed in this fire.
On Sunday August 27th, two HRWs were on Shuhada Street in front of the military post which watches the Beit Hadassa settlement in Hebron. At around 5 p.m. a group of six Palestinian kids between approximately 10 and 12 years of age, who had been around the area for a few hours, went towards the checkpoint and started a conversation with the soldier in the military post. After a couple of minutes, the group of kids sat down on the steps in opposite of the post and started obviously joking with the soldier, so that it was not clear if the kids were detained, or if they were just joking around with the soldier. The HRWs wanted to clarify the situation and asked the soldier what the kids are doing there. The soldier responded that the kids were detained because they tried to steal a bicycle from the settlement and that he called the police to deal with this case. The HRW asked the soldier to let the kids leave, but he refused to do so. A short time later, some Palestinian residents started talking to the soldier.
At about 5.30 p.m. one police officer and four Border policemen arrived at the military post and started questioning the boys and talking to a Palestinian woman who was still around. After about 15 minutes, three boys were allowed to leave and the Palestinian woman left with them, giving each a cuff on the head. The other three boys were still there, and the police officer told the HRW, who tried to intervene, that he should leave because they were “taking the kids back home”. The HRWs moved back several yards and saw the border police and the police officer take one boy after another into the military post, behind the camouflage netting, where the HRWs couldn’t see what was being done. When the first boy came out again (after about 15 seconds), the HRW saw that he was holding his head, so they suspected that those boys were taken in there to beat them. The HRW went quickly towards the military post while asking the soldiers and the police, if they would beat the kids in there. Being closer to the post, the HRW was able to hear slaps and see obvious moves. The Border Police came quickly towards the HRWs and tried to intimidate them while asking them questions and demanding their passports. Meanwhile, the three boys left.
There were two cameras filming most, if not all, of the following incident. A few soldiers are easily recognizable by Human Rights Workers (HRW) given the number of times they have been present while soldiers have been invading numerous Palestinian homes.
At approximately 5:15 PM, an HRW posted at the Tel Rumeida checkpoint heard yelling and screaming coming from up the hill. The HRW moved up the hill, and a Palestinian woman was able to point out the house and medical facility from which the screams were issuing. The HRW asked Israeli soldiers immediately inside the building’s door what was going on. They refused to answer, and the soldiers physically prevented the HRW from entering the house. At this point, Dr. Taysir, the building’s owner, broke free from the soldier who was holding him, and pulled on the HRW’s arm while begging him to enter. The HRW managed to enter the door, and saw two, elongated contusions high on Dr. Taysir’s left arm. While being pushed out once again, the HRW negotiated with the soldiers to leave the door open on the condition that he remain outside.
Shortly thereafter three more HRWs arrived. The HRWs managed to enter the building. Three HRWs demanded access to Dr. Taysir, who was now out of sight, while a fourth video taped the encounter. Dr. Taysir could be heard yelling and crying out in pain from a room further in the house. The HRWs attempted to move past the soldiers in order to prevent further injury to Dr. Taysir, but were repeatedly forced back. The soldiers refused to explain why the doctor’s home had been entered, why he had been struck, or why the HRWs could not see him. Throughout this time, the soldiers were physically and verbally aggressive towards the HRWs, repeatedly shoving them towards the door, and yelling at them to get out, shut up, etc.
At this point, an Israeli major arrived with approximately six more soldiers. The major entered the building and began speaking with Dr. Taysir’s brother, who had observed some, but not all, of the incident; this conversation is filmed almost entirely. The major spoke briefly to the soldiers already on site, who quickly became considerably less aggressive toward the HRWs. After approximately ten minutes, the major and all soldiers departed the house without speaking to anyone else. The HRWs then videotaped interviews with both Dr. Taysir and his brother regarding the incident.
Dr. Taysir told the HRWs that he gone to open the door for the soldiers when almost immediately they began shoving him around and pinned him against a wall by pressing on his chest. The doctor told the soldier not to push him, and the soldier responded by punching him in the temple. Other soldiers joined in, and Dr. Taysir received blows to his arms, legs, and torso. At least two blows, those to his left arm, were strikes with the butt of a rifle; these injuries are documented with video.
Dr. Tayseer’s injury from the soldiers as it looked the next day.
Seeing that Dr. Taysir was being attacked, a female patient who was present attempted to intervene, putting herself between the doctor and the soldiers. She was struck by a soldier, and fell unconscious. The patient was later placed on a medical exam table with an oxygen feed to help her recover, where she was videotaped (with permission) by the HRWs. Dr. Taysir’s adult
daughter was also beaten at some point during the encounter, though the events are not clear to us what happened. Dr. Taysir and his brother both stated repeatedly that soldiers used and regularly use foul language towards him and his family, including his wife and small children.
Later that evening, before sunset, soldiers could be seen on the roof of Dr. Taysir’s house. HRWs were standing on their own roof, and when they looked in the direction of the soldiers, the soldiers used their arms in a gesture to say ‘fuck you’ to the HRWs. The soldiers were laughing the entire time. The HRWs did not respond.
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Soldiers invade yet another home in Tel Rumeida, Hebron : August 20th, 2006
At approximately 12 PM HRWs arrived at a house being invaded by IDF soldiers. HRWs found the the door blocked by two soldiers, who refused to let them in the house; these soldiers did not tell the HRWs to not film them. After a few minutes of attempting to negotiate our way into the house, HRWs walked around the soldiers, and were met with little resistance. One HRW went to the family and asked if they were OK; the family appeared to be nervous but unharmed. Other HRWs proceeded to come into the house and look around, seeing if anything was disrupted or broken. None of us could see evidence that the soldiers had done this, unlike the previous week, in which the neighbor’s house was destroyed from the inside.
An HRW approached the commander of the unit with her camera on and asked him what they were doing; his face is clearly seen on film. The commander told the HRW that if she and her friends wanted to stay in the house, she should turn the camera off. The HRW told the commander that she could film and that if the soldiers weren’t doing anything wrong, it shouldn’t bother them. The commander then stepped closer to the HRW and said, “Look, i’m in control of this house now. If you want to stay and watch us search, then turn the camera off. If you don’t do that, then I will make all of you go outside, lock the doors, and you can wait for us to finish outside.” The HRW put her camera down and proceeded to follow the soldiers through the house. They did not break or take anything that was obvious. The soldiers left about ten minutes after HRWs had arrived. As the soldiers were leaving, one HRW said to the commander, “Hey, see you later, Yosi.” The soldier then replied, “You have a lot of guts saying that to me.”
The family told the HRWs afterwards that the soldiers come frequently to their house. The soldiers always tell them they’re looking for weapons, but have never found any. An HRW asked the family if the soldiers ever break or steal things, and one of the women replied, “Sometimes yes, sometimes no; we are always at their mercy. Today they behaved very well, and I think it was because all of you came.” The family thanked the HRWs repeatedly as we sat and drank tea with them.
The following is a more detailed account of the events first publicised in yesterday’s press release.
by ISM Hebron and the Tel Rumeida Project
Today, August 23, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) forcibly entered and searched many Palestinian homes in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. The checkpoints in the area were closed, and Palestinians were denied passage to and from the area late into the evening. The military operation may have been related to two separate situations. First, the settlers of Hebron had planned a “tour of Hebron” today, and there were many tour busses present as well as far more settlers and religious Israelis than usual walking about the streets. There was very likely an increased number of soldiers present to escort the settlers and Israeli tour groups and make them feel “secure.” The second, unrelated occurrence is a shooting that happened outside of Tel Rumeida in area H1 (the Palestinian controlled part of Hebron) prior to the military operation. What follows is an account of the events as the Human Rights Workers (HRWs) present observed them.
At around 2:45pm two HRWs were stationed on Shuhada Street, between the Beit Hadassa settlement and the checkpoint separating H1 and H2, when they heard exchange of gunfire from outside Tel Rumeida in area H1 that lasted for at least a minute. There was then an immediate increase in military activity on Shuhada Street; two police jeeps, two military ambulances, and several army jeeps were rushing down Shuhada Street, lights flashing, in the direction of the checkpoint. The HRWs then decided to leave their post and head up the hill towards their apartment. At that time another HRW called the HRWs on Shuhada Street to inform them that settlers from the Tel Rumeida settlement were shooting in the streets.
The HRWs walked toward the checkpoint, where many military vehicles were congregated, and saw that the checkpoint was completely closed to passage in either direction. They confirmed from others in the area that the other two entrances to Tel Rumeida had also been closed by that time. The HRWs continued up the hill to their apartment. The first thing out of the ordinary that they noticed was that some twenty soldiers were guarding the Tel Rumeida settlement up the hill from the apartment, and seemed primed for action. All of the Palestinians in the area seemed frightened or on alert and were closing up their homes and apartment buildings.
Soon after the HRW arrived, at around 3:00pm, about ten of these soldiers rushed down the hill to the Palestinian apartment building across from the HRW apartment. The soldiers banged on the main door of the building with the barrel of a gun and demanded entry, and then forcibly entered and searched the Palestinian homes inside. While around five soldiers searched the homes in the building, one soldier was stationed at the door and another two were at the corner of the building, positioned on their knees with guns poised. At 3:25pm, the soldiers moved on to the neighboring house. In the next two house, almost every house in Tel Rumeida within eyesight of the HRW’s apartment was forcibly searched. Based on information gathered from others in the area at the time, it seems that many, likely most, Palestinian homes in Tel Rumeida were searched during that time.
During the following two hours, the military presence and activity in the area seemed to constitute a full scale military operation. Many police and army jeeps, as well as Israeli intelligence vehicles were highly active in the area. Strangely, many settlers, some of them armed, were out on the streets during the military activity, walking about as they pleased. Two settlers contentedly sat on the neighbor’s stoop and watched the military go from house to house, humiliating one Palestinian family and then the next.
During the operation, two soldiers also tried to enter the HRW apartment. The HRWs demaded to see a warrant, and although the soldiers insisted they did not need one as they just wanted to talk “person to person,” the HRWs assured them that they did need a warrant and refused to answer any questions. The soldiers left and did not return after they realized the HRW would not be cowed into complying.
During the two hours of observation, the HRW called several sources to try to understand why this military operation was happening and how it was related to the shooting that preceded it. From information gathered from the Temporary International Presence in Hebron and other sources, the initial shooting the HRWs heard was internal fighting between Palestinians. There was a feud between two Palestinian families somewhere in H1 that led to shooting, which caused four Palestinians to be injured. Settlers from the Tel Rumeida settlement apparently responded to the sound of gunfire by firing their weapons toward H1. The settlers purportedly told soldiers that they saw Palestinian militants in the streets of Tel Rumeida, and this was why they were shooting. This apparently led to the IOF becoming involved and invading the homes to seek the non-existent militants.
By 5:00pm Tel Rumeida had calmed down considerably, the systematic home invasions seemed to have ended, and the army seemed to retreat to its usual positions in Tel Rumeida. In the following hours there were an unusually high number of settlers walking about the streets, some of them apparently here for the tour. Then around 6:30pm the HRWs were called and informed that soldiers had invaded homes again in the Tel Rumeida area.
When the HRW arrived at the invaded house (Abu Haykal Family) they found that the family was forced to sit outside while the soldiers searched their home. The soldiers had the identity cards of all the men in the family. Only the father of the family was allowed inside the house while the IOF searched their property. The HRWs tried to get into the house to monitor the behavior of the soldiers and be with the father, but the soldiers forcibly prevented them. When the HRWs insisted that they were allowed into the house unless the soldiers had orders that the house was a closed military zone, the soldiers guarding the entrance made such remarks as “I am the law!” and “I’m going to be violent and arrest you if you don’t leave!” They also joked between themselves in Hebrew that they planned on beating up the HRWs later on. In response to attempts by the HRWs to film the situation, the soldiers threatened to break their cameras. After about 15 minutes, a military jeep arrived and five more soldiers entered the house. The HRWs were continually threatened with arrest for “interfering with our [the soldiers’] work.” At one point two soldiers tried to forcibly push one HRW to the jeep as if they were going to detain him, but he sat on the ground and prevented them from doing so. In retaliation, the soldiers arbitrarily ordered the entire family and the HRWs to move behind the military jeep, and were threatened with arrest if they crossed an imaginary line. Meanwhile the soldiers searched a neighboring house. About 15 minutes later, the army then tried to order the Abu Haykal family into their house and to close the door. The HRWs and some family members refused to do so, and after about 10 minutes, the IOF handed out the IDs again and left.
The HRWs then proceeded to another house in the area that was being searched. The HRWs walked up the stairs to the front door despite the shouting of the soldiers outside that they were forbidden from doing so, and the HRWs told the soldiers that they would leave only when they saw the order that this house was a closed military zone. The soldier repeatedly threatened to arrest the HRWs and made calls as if he was arranging to have this done. The HRWs then noticed that soldiers were angrily shouting and preventing Palestinians from walking down the nearby hill to their homes. A group of older men insisted to know why and moved defiantly toward the hill as if they were going to ignore the soldiers’ orders. In response the soldiers became very aggressive, cocked their guns, and began shouting loudly at the men. About five minutes later another group of soldiers, including the commander of them all, came towards the scene. The commander ordered the angry soldiers to allow the men to go down the hill towards their homes.
