Settler graffiti on the Palestinan Qutarba girls school. Credit: Ann Detwiler.
22 April- A gang of 30 militant Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian grocery shop today, and assaulted the owner’s son and several others.
The settlers flung sharpened metal bars as “spears” through the open doorway smashing produce jars and knocking goods from the shelves. They also threw stones, punched and kicked a group of Palestinian children playing just outside, and assaulted Radi Abu Aeshah (16) who is the owner’s son.
International Human Rights workers were also attacked when they stood between the shop-front and the gang. The settlers only stopped when confronted by soldiers from the Israeli Army. The gang, composed of teenagers and older boys all in Orthodox Jewish dress of white shirts, black pants, and skull-caps and led by an adult man, then moved off into a near-by
Palestinian olive grove, where several Palestinian families live.
Tension had been building in Tel Rumeda all afternoon. Settler children spat at, and verbally abused human rights workers in the mid afternoon. A group of seven teenagers then threatened the same workers, and were overheard complaining that they were “not enough,” to make a successful attack. The teenagers, who were unaware some of the HRWs spoke Hebrew, said they would meet at the home of Baruch Marzell, founder of the ultra-extremist Chayil Party (Jewish National Front) to make a plan.
Some hours later, at approximately 3:45pm, the gang marched through Shuhada Street, in the old city near the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassa. They then turned left just before the Army checkpoint and marched up the hill where they attempted to attack some human rights workers who had become concerned for local Palestinians’ safety. The HRWs were backed up against a
wall and only saved by the intervention of a squad of Israeli soldiers who happened to be patrolling at the time. The gang continued up the hill, where the attack on the shop, owned by Hassin Abu Aeshah, took place.
The settlers have a long history of violence and intimidation against the Palestinian population of Hebron, but the Passover holiday period has seen a dramatic rise in the number and ferocity of their attacks. During the weeks around Passover, the settlers receive thousands of visitors, some of whom join-in attacks on Palestinians, Palestinian property, and the HRWs who attempt to protect them. Attacks have become common. HRWs report an average of two to three attacks occur each week in Tel Rumeida. Today’s attack was the third such organized attack to occur on Shabbat.
For more information:
Roger 059 994 3157
Tom 054 236 3265
At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills-
Israeli Occupation Forces beat non-violent Palestinian, international, and Israeli demonstrators this morning after declaring the area a Closed Military Zone. No map of the Closed Military Zone was ever shown to the protestors.
At-Tuwani villagers, Palestinian activists, Christian Peacemaker Team members, Operation Dove members, and Israeli activists from Ta’ayush were protesting against the Israeli authorities’ plan to build an 80cm ‘security’ wall along one side of bypass route 317.
An Israeli high court case appealing against the wall is currently in process. Despite this, construction continues further along the road towards Susiya. Picture by CPT
Yehuda Golan, a retired Brigadier General with 31 years of service in the Israeli military and a member of the Council for Peace and Security, said, “I do not have a shadow of a doubt that this is not an act of security. This is a wrongful and irresponsible use of the term ‘security’ for other objectives.”
The demonstration began this morning at about 10:30am when demonstrators were confronted in At-Tuwani, a village south of Hebron, by about 30 Israeli soldiers, Border Police, and Special Forces. The protestors were blocked by police and jeeps, but went around them and reached bypass road 317.
The police then told the demonstrators that they could stay along the road as long as they didn’t block it. The demonstrators obliged and stood off the road along the sides. Picture by CPT
After 20 minutes the police told the crowd that they had to go back. The police asked the Palestinians where they were from, and told them they had to return to their homes.
A few minutes later the police started pulling people off the side of the road to arrest them. They grabbed two Israelis first, and then a Palestinian from At-Tuwani, Hafiz Haraymi.
As the police started to drag Hafiz away his 75 year-old mother tried to prevent the arrest by getting in between Hafiz and the police with members of the Christian Peacemakers Team. Soldiers and police beat everyone away, shoving Hafiz’s mother to the ground several times and stepping on her stomach. She had to be evacuated to the hospital. Hafiz was taken to a jeep and handcuffed.
Activists stayed to wait for news and were told Hafiz was arrested for hitting soldiers with a stick. Video footage shows that he did not, and it will be aired on Channel 1 in Israel this evening.
For more information contact:
Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron- 02 222 84 85
A report on the impact of the wall can be found at http://www.cpt.org/hebron/hebron.php
Where: Meet at the clinic in At-Tuwani (the village of At-Tuwani is in the South Hebron Hills, south of Yatta, just south of bypass road 317, close to Ma’on settlement)
Why: The Israeli authorities plan to build an 80cm security wall along one side of bypass route 317. This wall would severely hinder movement of Palestinians living south of 317 to and from the closest larger population center of Yatta. An Israeli high court case appealing against the wall is currently in process. Despite this, construction continues further along the road towards Susiya.
Who: The local villagers, supported by the international At-Tuwani team of Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams, invite Palestinians, Israelis, internationals and media to attend this demonstration.
How: Anyone wishing to travel from Hebron (leaving 9am) should contact John from CPT Hebron at 054-213-6902. For transport from Jerusalem please contact Ezra from Ta’ayush at 050-551-5751. If anyone wishes accommodation in the village Friday night please contact Hafez at 054-461-3449.
For further information, a CPT-Operation Dove report on the proposed security wall can be found at: http://www.cpt.org/hebron/hebron.php or please contact:
Two young human rights activists spoke last night about the Palestinian population of Tel Rumeida, Hebron, a West Bank neighborhood that also contains some of what were considered the most fanatical Israeli settlements. The event’s sponsor, Stanford’s Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (CJME), brought the co-founders of a fledgling human rights project stationed in Tel Rumeida, 24-year-old Chelli Stanley and 35-year-old John Harmer, to campus as the group observes Palestinian Awareness Month.
The lecture, entitled “Tel Rumeida: Life Under the Occupation,” was the first in a series of related events extending into early May. Yesterday’s lecture — which also featured footage captured by project volunteers in the neighborhood — precedes a second lecture on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. by Palestine’s Deputy Ambassador to the U.N. Riyad Mansour in Cubberley Auditorium.
Chelli Stanley at Stanford
Stanley, originally from Maine, is a sociologist whose vision to establish the first permanent international presence in the neighborhood coincided with that of artist John Harmer. Harmer’s previous work examined the military industrial complex through sculpture.
Yesterday’s joint lecture, accompanied by a slide presentation, enumerated the ways in which the speakers said Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida were terrorized — witnessed and documented by the speakers — by two bordering settler communities. The speakers related anecdotes of torture and abuse.
Palestinian demonstration against the Tel Rumeida checkpoint
“One morning, a Palestinian boy was leaving to go to school and was surrounded by five adult male settlers, one of which put a battery operated power drill to his chest,” Stanley said. “This is a tactic they’ve been using against the children in the neighborhood.”
The boy survived and was not hospitalized, but the psychological impact of the act, Stanley suggested, breeds fear in the neighborhood’s dwindling Palestinian population.
Another story detailed the abuse of a small child.
“A female Israeli settler used a rock to pry open a young Palestinian boy’s mouth. She used the rock to grind down the child’s molars,” Stanley said.
The speakers named what they called the settlers’ other staple methods of abuse. They allegedly included stoning, arson, beatings, destruction of property and violence inflicted by even young Israeli children.
“Israeli settlers have found a loophole in the law that states that no one under the age of 12 can be held responsible for their actions. The attacks that appear in the most visible areas are often initiated by very young boys and girls,” Harmer said.
He explained that though many of the attacks are executed by children who are exempt from the law, violence perpetrated by adult men and women settlers is common and is in no way impeded by the local Israeli police and military.
In fact — the speakers suggested — the oppression Palestinians face in Tel Rumeida is exacerbated by the favoritism of the local Israeli military presence. The activist group reports that, though soldiers are bound by law to protect every individual in the neighborhood, violence against Palestinian residents is apparently openly tolerated.
To illustrate this point, Stanley related a tragedy in which a Palestinian woman lost two unborn twins during an attack by settlers. According to Stanley, the woman shouted repeatedly for help to nearby soldiers to no avail, and finally resorted to calling the Israeli police. Her son was attacked while the police refused to come to her home. Finally, after hearing the death threats screamed over the phone, the police arrived after a long delay. The woman later miscarried both of her twins and was forced to take a long detour around hostile settlements to reach a hospital.
Harmer claimed that the Israeli police in this area — who have come under fire from Israeli officials for their discrimination of Palestinians — often hang up on Arabic callers before their complaints or emergencies are relayed.
Both speakers began visiting Tel Rumeida in 2005, where they were immediately exposed to the daily life of local Palestinians. The speakers believed their observations warranted documenting, so throughout 2005 the activists filmed incidents of violence which will be compiled into a documentary in two to three months. Many of the clips are available on the Project’s Web site, which allows viewers to download the materially freely.
During their stay in Tel Rumeida, Stanley, Harmer and other international human rights workers acted as human shields against assailants, accompanying Palestinians through the streets and attempting to ward off attacks.
“We get in between the settler and the person being attacked. We scream at them and videotape the attack. With these settlers we know that we’re not going to stop the violence so we just try to redirect the attacks on ourselves,” Stanley said.
Stanford was just one stop along a circuit of destinations for Stanley and Harmer, who are touring the United States to raise funds for the Tel Rumeida Project and recruit new volunteers. The project seeks to raise $20,000 in the United States, which will be matched by a human rights agency. Most of the funds will go toward buying new video cameras for the project.
Militant supporters of the illegal settlers of Hebron attacked Human Rights Workers (HRWs), Palestinian teachers and children at approximately 7:40 this morning.
The small team of HRWs were on the street this morning ready to protect Palestinian children on their way to school. Attacks on Palestinian children are common, and tension in the area has been high during the Passover holiday period, when the settlers receive thousands of visitors who support their extreme militant actions.
While the HRW team waited for the children, a bus from Jerusalem full of young settler supporters arrived at the end of the street. About 15, aged in their late teens or early twenties got off the bus and gathered at the end of the street. Within minutes they walked up the street, heading for the HRWs and some Palestinian teachers and children.
They started to throw stones, and yelled “We’re going to kill you!” A Danish camerman from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) started to film, and immediately became a target for the settler group. The cameraman ran away. The settler group then attacked the other human rights workers, including Sister Anne Montgomery (who will be 80 in November) a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). She was stoned, as were Tore (29) from Norway, and Karien (46) from Germany. Soldiers from the Israeli Army watched the entire incident and made no attempt to intervene.
Despite being attacked, the HRWs managed to protect two Palestinian teachers and three children who were on their way to the nearby school, which is next door to the settlement. The Palestinians were able to shelter on the first floor of a nearby building.
The attack finally stopped when the police arrived, and the attackers ran back to the settlement. All the HRWs have bruises from kicks, punches, and stones. Anna (21) a Swedish woman from the ISM was wounded by a stone. The HRWs have reported the incident to the police, but if past experience is a guide, the police are unlikely to take effective action against this unprovoked attack.
For more information:
Anna (ISM witness): 054-3045205
ISM Media Office: 02-2971824
