Tag: Hebron

Qawawis, 4th June 2006: About thirty inhabitants of the small Palestinian village of Qawawis and the neighbouring villages of Jatta and Al-Twane gathered in Qawawis this morning at around 9 am. They were joined by three internationals from ISM and CPT as well as several journalists. All were assembled in opposition to the construction of a meter-high wall on the nearby settler-only road that building started on last Wednesday, and was due to be completed this morning. The demonstrator’s demand was a gap in this wall, to make it possible to pass through to the village by car and to reach their farming land on the other side.

The group went to the road and positioned itself in the work area, preventing continuation of the building. At that time no army was present, only the workers, so a villager from Qawawis tried to talk to them to convince them to leave their work. After around 15 minutes the first army jeep arrived and the soldiers asked the demonstrators to leave the area. They were not prepared to debate with the villagers and threatened to use violence if the people continued hindering the work. Over the next half an hour, three more army jeeps and two police cars arrived. The demonstrators held firm in their places while some were trying to negotiate with the soldiers. One soldier and a police man were videotaping those gathered in the demonstration, and police men were taking passports and ID cards of some of those present.

After some time, the responsible officer agreed after negotiating with Moussa Abu Maria, a Palestinian activist in the Hebron region, that there will be an opening left that allows passing through.

Altogether the group hindered the continuation of the construction for about three hours, until around 12am. Afterwards we could see the army jeeps driving around nearby and soldiers harassing people who were on their way back from the demonstration.

by Shlomo Bloom

One of the Palestinians said today that he thought most of the settlers were in Kiryat Arba and there were very few of them on the street so there was hardly any trouble.

At about 3pm, three settler boys of approximately 10 years of age began throwing rocks at two Human Rights Workers (HRWs) on Shuhada street. One HRW began filming and the other tried to get the boys to stop and encouraged the soldier to help. The soldier was able to get the boys to stop throwing rocks. A few minutes later a police jeep came by, asked if everything was OK and a HRW told him 3 boys were throwing rocks. The officer said he would look into it. After that, about three border police appeared at the stone stairs that lead to the Qutarba girls school.

At approximately 4pm the old man with his donkey attempted to pass through the checkpoint. The soldier on duty would not let him. A HRW inquired to see what the problem was. There was one nice soldier and one mean solder. The HRW spoke at length to the nice soldier who told her his commander had ordered them not to let the man through. The HRW told him the man goes through that checkpoint everyday. The soldier said he could not go through today. Attempts at reasoning with the mean soldier were futile. An HRW called Machsom Watch (the Israeli human rights group that monitors the behaviour of soldiers at checkpoints), who said she would see what she could do.

Eventually a deal was reached wherein the Palestinian man with the donkey would show the soldiers what was in the saddlebag and then he could go through. He was allowed to pass after approximately 20 minutes.

by Zadie Susser

We visited the land of Samer Shahdah Abu Asara, a Beit Ummar farmer who owns land directly next to the illegael Israeli settlement of Efrat. In part of his land he used to grow grapes. Another part, 25 dunums in size, has been annexed and enclosed by the settlement. This section of his land is surrounded by an electric fence, which was built about 6 months ago. It has been ten years since he used his land for growing grapes because settlers have erected a barbed wire fence inside and put up a tent that is used for vegetables. The tent has been there for about 4 years. Efrat settlement was built 27 years ago on the land of Abu Brekoot and now spans 3000 dunums. Samer Asara is intending to take his struggle to the Israeli courts to show that he has legal right to the land and the documents to prove it.

Later we visited the land of Mohammed Abu Solebey on the wadi Abu Reesh. He has 200 dunums of land near the Beit Aian settlement and suffers from the settlers there. 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. The settlers have pushed over many of the grape vines and destroyed them. He has gone to the police and they have written eight different police reports dating from 2004 to this year. On the 3rd of February last year he was severely beaten by a settler and was admitted to the hospital for his injuries.