Over Passover holiday, under the guise of a “Closed Military Zone” (CMZ) the Israeli authorities in Hebron have been excluding Palestinians and international Human Rights Workers (HRWs) from the streets of the Old City and Tel Rumeida areas.
The CMZ order has been selectively applied against Palestinians and HRWs since the Passover holidays started, while Israeli settlers in the area and thousands of Israelis visiting the settlements in the Old City and Tel Rumeida areas have been allowed to walk freely around the H2 area without being subject to the military closure, making the CMZ in effect an apartheid order.
From the rooftop of their enforced confinement in their apartment in the Tel Rumeida area, HRWs have witnessed soldiers pointing their rifles at Palestinian children to drive them indoors, when they had come outside to play football. Palestinians in general have been largely forced off the streets.
Two days ago, HRWs had been physically removed from the Tel Rumeida by the military as they cleared the street for the settler-supporting Israeli visitors. At 7am on th 19th of April, the order was said by the military to have been extended until an undisclosed date. However, soldiers have yet to produce a copy of this alleged new order.
For a copy of the previously issued CMZ order, see palsolidarity.org
For more information:
Anna: 054 304 5205
ISM media office: 02 297 1824 or 057 572 0754
The military order for April 18. Volunteers have not been shown the current order.
On Sunday, April 16 at 20:00 the Israeli military in the H2 area of Hebron established a closed military zone order for “persons or groups disturbing the order,” effective until April 18 at midnight. At 7:00 in the morning on April 19, the order was said by the military to have been extended until an undisclosed date.
This order, in practice, has been applied to human rights organizations and individual human rights observers, including ISM, the Eccumenical Accompaniment (EAPPI), the Christian Peacemaker Team, and the Tel Rumeida Project. Individuals from these organizations have been seized from the Shuhada street area in H2 and escorted to the H1 area, or forced to stay inside of their homes.
The order was originally justified by the military as being a special precaution taken for the holidays. However, the closed military zone order has been extended beyond the period of the Passover celebration. The presence of international human rights observers within the H2 area has proven to be an effective deterent to settler violence over the past several years. These well-established, internationally recognized organizations are currently being prevented from maintaining an active presence in the streets of H2, and we are deeply concerned by the potential threat this will cause to Palestinian lives.
Elizabeth Detwiler
International Human Rights Observer, Hebron
(052) 598-4344
The Israeli Army has threatened human rights workers in Hebron with further expulsions from the H2 zone, near the Old Souk (market). The activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and Tel Rumeida Project (TRP) have a small apartment in the zone, which is under Israeli Army control. The H2 zone is right in the middle of the historic old city, where militant Jewish settlers have established two illegal settlements. Six human rights workers were expelled last night.
Tension has been building throughout the Jewish Passover Holy period, when the settlers receive thousands of visitors, who share their belief that Hebron, with its population of over 110,000 Palestinians, should be an exclusively Jewish city.
Map that accompanied the exclusion order, showing prohibited zone.
The exclusion order permits the army or the police to detain, arrest, or expel any individual or group who is disturbing public order, or trying to disturb public order. The exclusion order came into effect at 8:00pm on the 16th April, and expires at midnight on April 18th, although soldiers have told the activists that they are applying to have the original order extended, or a new order given.
The human rights workers attempt to monitor and protect Palestinians who live and work close to the illegal settlements in the H2 zone. The settlers of Hebron are some of the most militant and violent in the entire Occupied West Bank. Numerous attacks on Palestinian adults and children have been reported, and the settlers often act with impunity. Police and army in the area are reluctant or very slow to intervene even in cases where attacks take place right in front of their positions.
For now, the human rights workers remain in their apartment, but are determined to stay and monitor the situation. They will attempt to intervene if asked to do so by Palestinians, or if they see a settler attack taking place.
For more information call:
Brian (Tel Rumeida Project): 054 734 3298
Anna (ISM): 054 304 5205
ISM Media office: 02 297 1824 or 057 572 0754
I arrived in the village Tuesday 11th of april.
12.4.06 In the morning I go with Hadj Mahmoud, who takes his sheeps for grazing on the hillside opposite the settlement of Susya. After some time we see a settler car on the road gong up to Susya and he is probably watching us. After 20 minutes the car drives down on the main road together with an army truck. 3 soldiers walk the about 70m up to us. I go a few steps towards them and say ‘welcome’. A soldier asks me what I am doing here, and I tell that I am a guest in the village and that I have come from Denmark to tell the truth about the Muhammad drawings. They seem a little confused and talk together for a minute or so. Then the soldier says that I should tell Mahmoud that he is not allowed to graze his sheep on the side of the hill turning towards the Susya. I say that he was only on the ridge and the soldier answers that I just should tell him that he has to stay on this side, because he is not allowed to come so close to the settler road. (The distance was about 300 m), I say Mahmoud only speaks Arabic but I will try to explain it to him. The soldiers leave. The settler drives his car back to the same place and continues watching us for the next half hour. Then he leaves.
A little detail that tells something about the psychic element in the situation. Mahmoud has discovered some rusty peace of iron in a bunch of soil and stones (a demolished stone house?) about 30 m on the forbidden side of the hill. He looks carefully around and then sends me to get it. When I brought it back he ordered me to hide it between the stones. At a time without any traffic he told me to run quick over the main road and put the iron piece between the olive trees. When we walked back to the village he threw it on he ground every time a private car or soldier car passed.
13.4.06 Nothing to report. Well for Ziad it was an eventful day as he had a daughter. I asked if they should celebrate it, but he informed me that it was a daughter, so no big party.
14.4.06 I am with Hadj Ibrahim who grazes his sheep near the main road where the illegal settler road goes to Kfar Ja’ir. A ‘hummer’ arrives and takes position at the next cross, by the road to Susya. They are watching us for some time. It seems not to be a checkpoint because nobody is stopped. After some time they just leave.
In the afternoon the shepherds go into the valley where they say there is never any problem. I decide to go another way to the valley to get a panoramic photo of the valley. I take the route towards Kfar Ja’ir, and half way up I see 5 young people in the fields of the village. They are dressed in white kippa and white shirts. When I walk up to them they walk away. When I speed up, they speed up. When they cross the illegal settler road and go towards Susya they shout something at me, and I just wave my arms and shout ‘hello’. I did not know if this could mean anything, but I think they were just party dressed young guests in Susya and they wanted to have a walk in the area.
15.4.06 No problems. Everything quiet. In the afternoon a UN jeep turns up with 2 people from UNWRA and 2 from Amnesty International. They took photos of the structures that are ordered to be demolished and had talks with the families about medical needs. They told me that some other villages in the neighbourhood are harassed by settlers and that there is some jealousy about the fact that Qawawis got internationals and they do not! They stress that it would b good if more internationals would be there.
16.4.06 A rainy day. In the afternoon I walk to Karmel – well the last 500 m I am invited to join a farmer to sit on his donkey.
Take a trip to Qawawis and you step back in time, yet remain in a surreal and frightening present.
It’s an extraordinary place of stark beauty, situated at the extreme southern tip of the Occupied West Bank. Most of the people live in ancient limestone cave dwellings, variously enlarged and improved over the centuries. Yet each is swept spotlessly clean, belying first impressions that an ancient lifestyle means dirt and squalor.
Qawawis itself is tiny, home to just five Palestinian families. The population varies depending on who’s brother, sister, aunt or other relative happens to be around, but it is usually between 15 to 50 people. The permanent residents earn a skilful but hard living shepherding goats and growing crops in a harsh semi-desert landscape.
The survival of Qawawis as a living community is a minor miracle, quite apart from the climate, and the day to day hazards and uncertainties of subsistence farming. Over the past few years two illegal Israeli settlement outposts, founded by militant and very dangerous settlers, have been established on nearby land. Since the settlers arrived, they’ve constantly harassed, threatened, and sometimes physically attacked the people.
They’ve ruined wells and poisoned livestock. Three years ago, their tactics paid off and they managed to chase the families away from Qawawis. A single settler moved in, vandalized homes, and added a building of his own. Then in a biazarre twist it turned out that Israeli Army has it’s own designs on Qawawis, wanting to turn the area into a training/security zone. The army evicted the settler, and bulldozed rubble in front of the cave dwellings, hoping to seal them off forever.
The army’s action was premature. The people of Qawawis, with the help of international and Israeli human rights groups fought back with a court case that went all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court. The people won, and court found that Palestinians, not settlers or the army had the rights to Qawawis.
Unfortunately the judgment had a catch. The people were welcome to return, but on condition that no new buildings were constructed. So they returned, and they cleared the rubble, repaired their homes, shepherded their goats and sheep, planted their crops, and repaired their free-standing bread oven and outhouse. Both these structures are essential to the standard of living, which at best is very low.
Then they made a mistake; they added a simple tent-like canvas awning to both oven and outhouse to keep out the winter rains and the summer sun.
In the blinkered eyes of the Israeli administrators, these rudimentary and sensible improvements make both structures “new.” On the 27th March 2006 they served an order giving the people a month to demolish them, or the authorities would do the job themselves. So once again, there will be a court case, this time on the 27th April 2006, in Beit El near Ramallah, where lawyers will argue over the meaning of the word “new.”
Building of a very different kind has also been going on in Qawawis area. Despite the fact that the two settlements closest to the hamlet are illegal (all settlements are illegal under International Law, but these ones are also illegal under Israeli law), the authorities have been kind enough to provide the law-breakers with electricity, telephone lines, piped water, and a couple of new roads.
One of these new roads runs very close to Qawawis, and the Israeli Army, for ‘security reasons,’ has imposed a 100 meter ‘security zone’ on each side where no Palestinian is allowed to go. This means in some Qawawis homes, taking a few steps from your front door means you are in a military exclusion zone.
More trouble has come from the main road about 1km (2/3 mile) away. The Israelis have recently started building a “mini-wall” along the edge of the northern carriageway. Made of concrete blocks precisely 82cm high and built along the curb, they prevent vehicles from leaving the road and heading into the semi-desert beyond. They are also just high enough to prevent a sheep or a donkey leaden with supplies from crossing.
This poses a serious problem for Qawawis as this mini-wall will cut it off from Karmel and Yatta. These are the small towns that provide supplies and markets for produce. The mini wall itself is something of a mystery, it doesn’t appear on any publicly available Israeli or UN maps, and enquiries about its design, length, purpose, and on who’s authority it is being built have so far been fruitless. An ISM volunteer spoke to some of the workmen last week, and they said it will run from Karmel to Susya (approximately 10km, 6 miles). As one of the people of Qawawis said “we’re going to be in a prison here.”
Cave dwellings, a road, an outhouse, a bakery, and mysterious wall 82 cm high and six miles long (maybe). Only in the surreal world of the Occupied West Bank would such insignificant structures cause so much trouble.
