Tag: Hebron

by Musa Abu-Marya. Translated by Sunbula

al-Jab’a

June 13th: The problem – the settlers that are residing in Beit Ain located near the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, and between Beit Ummar and al-Jab’a are engaging in hostile actions in areas surrounding the two villages. Today, the settlers set fire to land in al-Jab’a as well as some of the olive groves and other farmlands. The farmers depend on their land, but some of them have been unable to reach their lands close to the settlement in the last 5-6 years, due to repeated assaults on the same person or on his land. It is evident that the policy being followed is one of forced evacuation and the planting of fear into the hearts of the farmers. The lands that were burned belong to the al-Tous and al-Mesha’ala families from al-Jab’a.

Beit Ummar

Jaber al-Sulaiby is the owner of the land that was attacked on June the19th 2006. On this day, a settler from Beit Ain came down to al-Suleiby’s land many times with a flock of goats that proceeded to eat the grapes, plums and other fruit trees. There were numerous complaints filed with the Gush Etzion police but without any result. The settlers and their goats were not stopped from attacking the land. There were also a number of peaches and cut trees that were found on the ground. Additionally, most of the unclean (sewage) water was found poured on to the land of the Suleiby family.

by Zadie

Musa Abu Marya, a peace activist from Beit Ummar, was again detained by the Israeli army on Sunday June 19. A group of five Palestinians and international peace activists were traveling along the settler road 137, which borders the Gush Etzion settlement bloc. At about 7 p.m. we were stopped by soldiers and told to leave, except for Musa who they said would be arrested.

The two internationals refused to leave and took pictures of the soldiers surrounding Musa, tying his hands behind his back, blindfolding him and putting him in the Jeep. The soldiers attempted to take away one international activist’s camera, wrestling with her until finally giving up. Inside the Jeep a soldier interrogated Musa, threatened to take him to prison, and beat him on the back of his head with his gun.

After an hour and a half, they let Musa go and forbade us from going to Jab’a, our destination.

This is the second time in two weeks Musa was detained and beaten by the military while walking with internationals in the area. There was no clear reason for his detention in either case and an order to stop people who were in the area was never provided. Both times Musa was stopped near settlements and questioned about what he was doing with internationals.

A lawyer from Machsom Watch commented on the detention, saying that the army was fully within their rights under the military law that rules Palestinians in the region to do everything they did, except beat him. “It is a police state,” she said.

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, reports on the difference in civil right between Palestinians and settlers living in the same region, “Israeli civilians living in the Occupied Territories are not subject to military or local law, like the Palestinians, but are prosecuted according to the Israeli penal law. This situation is extremely grave: in a single occupied territory, Israel is operating a system of separation with discrimination by law.”

The presence of the settlers in the region threatens the rights of Palestinians. By law the Israeli army can stop Palestinians from nearing settlements, and detain and arrest them, even on their own land.

by Joe

June 22nd: Shortly after 4:00 p.m. this afternoon, a Palestinian youth informed two human rights workers sitting on Shuhada St. that settler youth were attacking the retaining wall just built alongside the new brick path to the Qurtuba School. When we reached the staircase up to the path, we saw three settler boys, aged approximately 10-12, on the path. When they saw us and our video camera, they immediately ran from the scene and crossed back to the Beit Hadassah settlement.

The settler boys had apparently used one large boulder and several bricks to smash some of the breeze-blocks the new wall is made of. In all, they damaged 26 of the 95 blocks that make up the top row of the retaining wall, which is part of an improvement program funded by the international monitoring group TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron). They almost totally destroyed some of the blocks, but did not get to the second layer of blocks. If human rights workers had not been stationed nearby, the damage would undoubtedly have been much worse.

The human rights workers video-taped the damage and called the police, the army office, and TIPH to report the incident. A police jeep arrived 5-10 minutes later, but the police officers refused to get out of their vehicle to survey the damage or to talk to the settlers. TIPH promised to send one of its monitoring teams to inspect the damage to the project it is financing, but as of 6:40 p.m. the team had not arrived.

At around 6 p.m. one of three Palestinian youth talking with a human rights worker on the path was hit in the arm and cut by a sharp stone thrown by a settler boy hiding behind a car parked in front of the settlement.

More photos of the destruction can be seen at:

To download the video click here

June 14th: At approximately 12:30 PM, two Human Rights Workers (HRWs) on Shuhada Street noticed a group of between 8 and 10 settlers boys between the ages of 9 and 12 carrying plastic bags filled with water. The boys were coming out of the Beit Hadassah settlement and were headed up the stone stairs towards Qurtoba, a Palestinian school building. The HRWs followed the boys to the stairs and were attacked with the bags of water. The soldier on duty at the Israeli military post spoke to the HRWs in Hebrew and made gestures for them to leave. The HRWs told the soldiers they only spoke English and asked him to get the kids to stop attacking them. The soldier did nothing and the children began throwing rocks at the HRW.

To read the full report please click here.