Tag: Hebron

One of Solayby’s grape vines that settlers knocked over and their sheep ate the leaves

Muhammed Abu Solayby from Beit Ummar village near Hebron has suffered heavily from the settlers from the nearby settlement of Beit Ai’an. They have destroyed many of his grape vines, fruit and nut trees, and even beat Abu Solayby severely last year. He was injured enough that he was admitted to the hospital.

He has filed eight different police reports with the Gush Etzion settlement police, who are the commanding police force for Beit Ummar and the settlements in the area. The police have done nothing to stop the violence or the destruction of Solayby’s property, and, recently, the police have gone a step further and have forbidden Solayby to go to his land.

Grape Vines almost completely eaten by the settlers’ sheep

Last Friday the police stopped him from accessing his land. They told him that if he or his wife steps on his own land, the settlers are going to beat him. On Monday, June 12th, the police told him to go to the Police station and asked him to bring the deeds for the land. He obtained the official papers from the municipality and the land court, showing his family’s ownership since the Ottoman empire period. Although he has all the correct documents, they said he is not allowed to go anymore. Solayby told them, “I will go on the land because it is my land not the settlers’ land”.

He has 200 dunums (50 acres) on the wadi Abu Reesh. The settlers bring their sheep to his land to graze, and these sheep eat the new growth on his grape vines, fruit and olive trees, destroying many. The settlers have pushed over many of the grape vines and destroyed them. In the last week, they have become more aggressive and have continued to threaten him when he enters his land.

Solayby has 200 dunums of land on the wadi Abu Reesh. The settlers bring their sheep to his land to graze, and the sheep eat the new growth on his grape vines, fruit and olive trees, damaging them. The settlers have also overturned many of the grape vines, destroying them completely. In the last week the settlers have become more aggressive, threatening him when he enters his land.

He has contacted the mayor of the municipality who told him that he can’t do anything to control the settlers or the police, and that the best thing, and maybe the only thing to do is go with internationals and/or Israeli peace groups to the land to face the settlers.

Tel Rumeida Report, June 6th to June 10th 2006

Settler women sitting in an occupied Palestinian clothing shop; the clothes are ransacked in a pile on the left (Photos by Sunbula)

Raids:

7th June 2006

A Palestinian family related that at around 10:30pm on the 7th, six soldiers entered their home, confiscated their mobile phones, and turned them out of doors, except for one of the brothers, who they locked in a room downstairs. When they were asked why they did this, one of the soldiers replied: “because I want to fuck him”.

They went through all the wardrobes and cupboards of the house, the computer and digital camera. When asked what they where looking for they refused to answer.

One of the soldiers took photos of everyone, with his mobile phone camera.

The mother told them they where “like Hitler’s soldiers”, one of the soldiers agreed in a proud tone saying “Yes. we are like Hitler’s soldiers.”

At midnight the soldiers left, saying that they would return, and it is at this point that the family called a Human Rights Worker (HRW), who relayed the message to us.

Chicken wire erected by Old City shopkeepers above their stores to stop garbarge thrown by settlers

7th June 2006 10:00pm, HRW Apartment

Six soldiers turned up at the apartment, banging on the door and asking to be let in. They said they where bored and lonely and wanted to come in for tea and coffee, giggling and calling to us in falsetto voices. They continued this for about half an hour, before they left, singing and laughing.

An independent researcher was outside while this was going on, having been caught outside smoking a cigarette. While the others where banging on the door, three surrounded her, asking her if she was smoking hash and where she was from.

When she told them they where “hillul hashem” (a disgrace to God), one asked her if she spoke Hebrew; she told them she did not, he then spoke to her in that language in a tone suggesting she was being insulted, then repeated the routine with Arabic.

She asked a different soldier who had seemed more sympathetic, why they where doing this, to which he replied they “sometimes have to do bad things”.

She told him that when they behaved in this way, they disgraced themselves and their country.

Seeing she was shaking, he then asked her if she was cold, to which she said she was, and it was at that point that he lead them away.

10th June 2006, 7:50pm, HRW Apartment Apartment

It was noticed that a dozen soldiers and two jeeps, where gathered in the street outside the apartment.

At 8:15pm, at least four soldiers came to the door of the apartment, the first of them saying: “Let us in. I’m asking nicely this time.”

When they where refused one of them went down on his knees and begged to be let in.

A HRW asked if they had a warrant, they replied that they did not, and after about ten minutes they left.

Stonings

6th June 2006 4:30, Checkpoint 56 (corner of Shuhadda st and Tel Rumeida st)

An American HRW was sitting across from the HRW’s apartment, when two settler children, about 8 to 10 years of age, where let out of a car in front of him.

They walked past, towards the Tel Rumeida settlement, stopping at the first skip, and picking up stones, which they threw at the HRW, hitting him in the neck and collarbone.

The soldier on guard was alerted by a passing local, and came to intervene, at which point the children left, running up the hill to the Tel Rumeida settlement.

This is what happens when settlers manage to enter a Palestinian home

Continue reading Human Rights Abuses in Hebron

by Sunbula

The villagers of at-Tuwani village in South Hebron were joined on Friday June 9th by Israeli and international peace activists in a successful non-violent demonstration to try and prevent the continuing construction of a one-metre high wall by the army along a settler-only road that separates at-Tuwani and other villages near it from the rest of Hebron district. Activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) marched with Palestinians from the area and Hebron city towards the road from the north while activists from the Christian Peacemakers (CPT) and the Israeli group Ta’ayush (Coexistence) marched simultaneously with at-Tuwani villagers from the opposite side.

Palestinians, young and old, men and women, turned out in large numbers to protest yet another apartheid-style attempt to divide up Palestinian land into isolated bantustans. At first, the military tried to prevent us from even reaching the road by intimidation; they put a couple of jeeps on the road in the hope of scaring Palestinians away from participating, but no one was deterred.

The protest was largely peaceful and lively. We were met at the settler road by the Border Police and regular police, who attempted to stop us from going on to the road, ostensibly to let traffic move. However, every settler car that passed was given a resounding “welcome” by the Palestinians, who chanted in Arabic “See our flag, we want to see our flag, we don’t want to see settlers”. The Israeli forces also tried to keep people on both sides of the road apart from each other, but they seemed to be overwhelmed a little by being “attacked” from both sides as it were. No one – international, Israeli or Palestinian gave them even the slightest excuse to resort to violence. Also memorable was an old woman from at-Tuwani who gave a resounding speech to the demonstrators against the building of this wall, as well as three young Palestinian women who spiritedly chanted slogans about the unity of the Arab people “from at-Tuwani to al-Jowlan [Golan]” and “from Yatta to Beirut”, defying stereotypes about submissive and silenced Arab women that the Western and Israeli media often love to propagate to justify this occupation and other imperial adventures.

After the protest was peacefully declared over, internationals and Palestinians went to at-Tuwani to evaluate the action, rest and drink tea. The Border Police, known as the “pride of Israel” for its brutality towards Palestinians, tried to prevent internationals from the Northern (Yatta) side from crossing the road in order to go to at-Tuwani. They obviously didn’t want us to get too friendly with members of the “enemy state”. As I was crossing the road with my video camera in hand, one Border Policeman said something to me in Hebrew and grabbed me by shirt and started pulling me back towards the road. There were several internationals right next to me, and a co-ISMer pulled me out of the Policeman’s grip back in the opposite direction. Eventually all the internationals were able to get through, but the Israeli activists were forbidden from passing. At the village, Hafez, a resident of at-Tuwani and its activist superstar (for his resistance against the occupation) thanked everyone for their participation. He talked about how the military and Shabak would often raid villages and try to intimidate Palestinians into not participating in demonstrations. But along with others he expressed his hope that nonviolent resistance in this region would continue to grow and that protests such as this would become bigger, more effective and regular.