Tag: Hebron

First Hand Account of Palestinian and International Arrests in Hebron

by Johan

At approximately 13.15 I and another international were at Shuhada Street in Tel Rumeida, Hebron. I saw a soldier holding a 15-year old girl on her shoulders, so I walked over and filmed with my video camera while I asked the soldier what was going on. The soldier said “she won’t leave”. After a minute a group of three settlers aged 15-20 aggressively approached the girl. I tried to position myself between the Palestinian girl and the settlers. The settlers tried to grab my video camera and kicked and punched me – they were also trying to hit the girl. One of the settlers kicked the girl’s legs right before my eyes (there is a photo of this settler if he needs to be identified). The soldier did not to protect the girl from this assault.

After a minute or two we managed to get the girl away from the situation and walked with her up to Shuhada Street. An older Palestinian man and an older Palestinian woman accompanied us and were speaking to the girl. We stayed at the scene to try to find out what had happened before the girl was being held by the soldiers, but no one spoke English so we didn’t find out much. A Palestinian boy aged approximately 13 who spoke some English came along and tried to help us. During all this the girl was continuously asking us to call the police. We did not call the police at that point.

Approximately five minutes later a police car came from the Beit Hadassa settlement and drove up to us. They walked up to the girl and started talking to her. I tried to stay close and film it all, but they kept moving her away from me. A mob of approximately 20 settlers (kids and adults, men and women) arrived, and tried to block my way. They grew more and more aggressive and punched the video camera out of my hand. They destroyed it by stamping on it and kicking it away. When I was making phone calls about the incident the settlers tried to grab my telephone. I was also kicked on the foot by a settler man approximately 50 years of age (this man can also be identified).

Two to three minutes later the Palestinian girl was stuffed into the police jeep and was driven away.

Me and two other internationals (one more had joined us) tried to walk away towards the checkpoint but were physically stopped by a big settler guy who was filming us. He said we couldn’t pass, and since we were not sure if this person was a policeman or a soldier I asked a soldier about this – he told us the man was a settler. The mob was getting even more aggressive and I called out to two soldiers to help us to get out of there. They said we should follow them towards Beit Hadassa, and after a while we got away from the crowd. During this whole time, the settlers where constantly intimidating and threatening us, trying to get at us physically.

We walked with the soldiers through Beit Hadassa, and were told to wait there. We were not informed that we had been detained or arrested. The settler guy with the video camera was there filming the three of us. The soldiers told us to tell the other internationals in Hebron to get off Shuhada Street since they could not guarantee their safety. The message was passed on. The time was 13:26 at this point.

After a while, when being questioned, one soldier told me that I was accused of attacking a soldier, which I had not done. I asked him if I was being detained, and he said something like “I don’t know what that means”. So I and the two other internationals decided to start walking away from the scene. When we did so one soldier followed us and said that he would continue to do so until the police arrived. We continued walking but after a while where were stopped by some other soldiers and held a military jeep in wait for the police. At this point the time was approximately 13:45.

The police arrived and asked for our passports. After waiting for a while they let me know that I was accused of attacking a soldier. The other two internationals were free to go. They decided to go to the police station to file a complaint regarding the settler violence we all had experienced. The commanding police officer at the scene was “Zev Zafrani”.

I was transported in a military jeep to Kiriat Arba Police Station (the car left at 14:11), where I was told to sit and wait. The Palestinian girl sat in a chair a few meters away from me, in company of three soldiers. At one point a policeman was showing her what looked like an album of photographs, seemingly in order to identify someone. At another point a policeman (the same that later interrogated me) was asking her questions without a legal representative, despite the fact that the girl was only 15 years old. The policeman was being aggressive and raised his voice, which the three soldiers sitting next to her seem to think was ok, judging from their content and merry facial expressions.

There was one soldier who was watching the girl so she could not get away. This was the same soldier who had been holding the girl on her shoulders at the military post at the beginning of all this. He told me that the girl had attacked him with a knife. The girl was visibly trembling as she sat down waiting.

The girl disappeared from the scene on one or two occasions, presumably to be questioned, but came back to the waiting area. During this time her father was waiting at the gate to the police station, but was not let in. I pointed out this fact to various police officers, and asked them to let him in since the girl was obviously scared, but they did not take much notice.

After a while the two other internationals arrived at the police station, and were told to wait along with me.

At approximately 16:15 I was taken in for questioning and the police officer told me I was a suspected of having attacked a soldier and interfered in his work. The soldier who I had supposedly attacked was at the desk next to me. When he overheard the accusations against me I looked at him and he laughed, not in an antagonistic way, but due to the absurd accusation. Later he told me that he did not say that I had pushed him, maybe just touched him, so it seemed as if the policeman was trying to intimidate me by making it sound worse than it actually was. I was told that what I said in this questioning could be used as proof against me in a trial. I stated very clearly at a few times that I had not in any way attacked the soldier. He was lecturing me saying I should not come to his country and interfere with his business, if he came to another country he would let the military and police do their job. I thought, but did not say, that this was his country as little as mine.

At some point he said that I might be deported or arrested, he didn’t know yet, and so on.

Apart from denying that I had used any violence I did not answer any of his questions. He was asking about what I was doing in Hebron, was I here with an organisation etc. He was asking me to give a detailed account of what had happened, but I did not and told him I thought he was being abusive towards me (he was raising his voice a lot and generally tried to intimidate me), and that he was just trying to get me to say something that was not true. At the end of the interrogation he asked me if I wanted to make a complaint against the settlers, but as I was a suspect and this was still a hearing, I turned down the offer, and told him I would prefer to do the complaint at a later date. I was told to wait outside. The time was 16:30, and the police still had my passport. I asked the soldier I was accused of attacking why he was there, and he told me that he had to wait because he was going to take the girl some where in a while. He didn’t say where or why (I don’t think he knew).

I waited until 16:45, when I had been held for 3 hours without being arrested, and asked the policeman if I could have my passport so I could leave, but he wouldn’t give it to me. I pointed out the fact that they were illegally detaining me on several occasions to the policeman who interrogated me and to another one called Aviv. I said I wanted to make a complaint that I was being illegally detained but they said I could do this when the interrogation was over.

At approximately 18:10 I was given my passport back and he said I was released, and that they would escort me and the two other internationals out of the police station. However this did not happen. Instead the policeman threatened with deportation once again and told us to wait while they cleared something up. He said something like “just like in the movies… they release you and then they take you back in”.

On two or three occasions after the interrogation I spoke over the phone with an Israeli lawyer, for advice, and at this point I got the policeman to speak to her on the phone, which I think had some effect. After speaking to the policeman she was saying to me that there was no reason whatsoever to deport me and that I should refuse to get on a plane if it came to that. She also said that I should have made a complaint about the settler violence, which I had declined to do while I was put on the defensive. I told the interrogator that I would be happy to file a complaint about the abuse of the settlers whenever they wanted, but then he said that I had my chance, that I should come back tomorrow.

Finally, at approximately 18:30, me and the two other internationals where taken to the gate and let out of the police station. We asked the policeman what was going to happen to the girl, and he said she would be arrested and held overnight.

Settler Violence Against Human Rights Observers and Palestinians in Hebron

Tel Rumeida, Incident Report by Sarah

After the main group of settlers had passed us on the hill, Moran and I followed the rest of them up to the intersection at the top of the hill where many of them were milling around.

We wondered where Eva and Sarah were. We later found out that they had been forced into the shop by the crowd of settlers chanting “death to the arabs” and by the soldiers. The store keepers had bolted the door and showed them the back way out and they had made their way to the stairs of the apartment.

Moran and I observed about 10 small settler boys (of varying ages between 6 and 12) throwing stones up toward our apartment and yelling (although we could not understand what). We thought they knew it was the internationals’ apartment and were just generally showing hostility, but we realised later they had seen Eva and Sarah and that is who they were yelling at.

An apparently senior member of the settler group with a long beard and prayer shawl aged about 50 was shooing the boys away, and three police officers were also scattering the boys.

After less than 5 minutes one of the police approached us and spoke Hebrew to Moran: they told us to get out of here for our safety.

We returned a short way back past the soldier station down the hill and watched until the group dispersed in both directions (towards the tombs and Tel Remeida settlement).

Generally it was a very intimidating day with settlers harranguing us and the boys spitting on us (I got big green ones on 3 different occasions during the day). I also witnessed Galit intervene to stop a settler girl (around 15 years old) from touching a Palestinian child, and the girl slapped her. She was walking with a family group consisting of parents, baby carriage, a small boy and 2 teenage girls. Settler parents of often actively encourage their children to assault Palestinians and stand with them as they stone Palestinian children.

Closed Military Neighborhood

Internationals challenge Israeli repression in Tel Rumeida

by Joe Carr

Due to the effectiveness of our work in Tel Rumeida, the Israeli military and police have increased their efforts to rid the area of internationals. Volunteers from a variety of international organizations have been doing full-time accompaniment, documentation and physical intervention work to deter constant settler violence in Tel Rumeida, a Hebron neighborhood colonized by around sixty of the most fanatic Israeli settlers.

Volunteers from the Tel Rumeida Project and the International Solidarity Movement have been especially targeted for violence by settlers, and harassment by Israeli military and police.

Israeli Police detained four international volunteers on the evening of Sept. 9 while they were documenting and intervening in Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians. At the Kiryat Arba Settlement police station, officers said that they weren’t arresting the internationals, but wanted to make it clear that they would not allow internationals to live in Tel Rumeida anymore. After two hours, the police agreed that they could spend one more night in their apartment but could not go out. “If I see you in the street again, I’ll arrest you” an officer threatened.

When they arrived back at the house, they found two Israeli soldiers blocking the entrance. The soldiers took their passports and demanded that they unlock the house and let them search it. The internationals refused, and then four soldiers began banging on the doors and windows trying to break in, so they began yelling at them to stop. The soldiers stopped abruptly and left.

This morning, we went out at 6:45AM as we do every day to help protect Palestinian girls on their way to Cordova School, located right across from an Israeli Settlement. Afterwards, we began our usual patrols around Tel Rumeida, being especially vigilant because it is Saturday, the settlers’ most violent day. By 11AM, every group of internationals had been stopped by Israeli police and military and threatened with arrest if they didn’t leave immediately. They explained that nearly all of Tel Rumeida had been declared a “Closed Military Zone”, which only residents are permitted to enter. Our house falls within the closed zone, and we tried to argue that we are residents, to no avail.

Around noon, Tel Rumeida Project volunteer Luna and I went to buy food from a store located next to a military post. The Israeli police were there waiting for us, suddenly excited that they’d finally get to arrest us. However, when the commander came and we explained that we were only trying to buy food, he let us go assuring us that we’d be arrested if we went out again.

We must continue to document and protect Palestinians from Israeli violence and we refuse to be banned from Tel Rumeida. Three volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement (two Swedes and one Brit) decided that they were willing to challenge the ban by getting arrested and taking it to court. We decided I would videotape from a nearby hill, and the three would do a patrol in an area near soldiers and refuse to leave when threatened with arrest.

I positioned myself on the hill with the camera as the three set-off. “May the force be with you” I hollered, right as a passing Israeli military patrol came strolling down the hill. They noticed me of course, so I waved and showed them my video-camera so they wouldn’t think I was a sniper. The six soldiers all came up and detained me of course, while I noticed the other three disappear around a corner down the hill out of sight. “What a great plan” I thought.

Turns out, the other three had gone to intervene in a situation of settler violence down the street when they got a call informing them that tomorrow is the change-over of power in Gaza and the media will be very distracted. They aborted their mission and headed back up the hill to find me surrounded by soldiers. Eventually, the police came and again explained that this area is closed and I’m not allowed to be in it. I maintained that I misunderstood and thought that I just couldn’t be in the street, so they let me go after 15 minutes.

We stayed the rest of the night under house arrest, planning to go out again the next day as the Closed Military Zone order expired at midnight.

On the morning of Sept. 11, four internationals set off to Cordova School to protect the children, while Luna and I went up the hill to patrol another area of constant settler violence. The police arrived after about 10 minutes. An officer I recognized from the day before pointed at Luna and said “I’m arresting her now, she knows she can’t be here.” We protested that the Closed Military Zone order had expired and that we could legally be there, but the officer threatened to arrest us anyway. Luna warned him that if he arrested her illegally she would call her lawyer and file a complaint against him personally, and the police then got significantly less aggressive. We tried to walk away, and the officer yelled and ordered us to stay. We waited while he talked on his radio, and then he said we could go but warned that he would arrest us if he saw us again.

The four internationals at the school had also been hassled, but the police admitted that there was no current closure order but they were going to get one. By 9AM, they had the new closure order which they said was good until 6PM tomorrow (normally they’re only for 24 hours but this was a special one).

Meanwhile, teachers and students from Cordova School refused to pass through the recently fortified Tel Rumeida checkpoint. Palestinians entering Tel Rumeida have been forced to pass through an armored trailer with electric sliding doors and metal detectors for about two weeks now. Fed up with the inconvenience and humiliation, around 25 Palestinians demanded that they be allowed to go around the checkpoint. Israeli soldiers said they’d allow the children and four pregnant women to go around, but not the others. The group decided they would not be divided and all sat down and refused to leave until school ended. School let out early because three armed Israeli settlers parked outside the school in a pickup truck, which terrified the young girls.

Three internationals decided to violate the new closure order and join the teachers protest from the Tel Rumeida side of the checkpoint, and to accompany them to school if they got through. After around a half hour of threats, the police finally arrested the three. They are currently being held in the police station at Kiryat Arba Settlement in Hebron.

The arrested internationals will likely be held for several days and be pressured to sign conditions that they will never enter the area again (or possibly Palestine at all). ISM lawyers are working on it, and I will keep you updated. Meanwhile, we will remain under house-arrest and have to sneak in and out to get food and internet access. But we will not be intimidated into leaving, but only double our efforts to support Palestinian resistance to Israeli colonization.

Tel Rumeida – Stones & Struggle

By Joe Carr

The Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron is a major flashpoint of tension between Palestinians and Israeli colonial settlers. Around forty Israeli soldiers protect over sixty of the most racist and violent of Israeli settlers, forcing over one thousand Palestinians (whose families have lived in Tel Rumeida for hundreds of years) to live in a virtual prison. Fences, walls, and checkpoints block every entrance to Tel Rumeida, and there are Israeli soldier posts throughout the neighborhood. The closures make commerce virtually impossible, and it is difficult for any non-residents to visit their Tel Rumeida friends and family. Many families have moved out for this reason alone.

Even more troublesome than the constant prison-camp conditions are the fanatical settlers who regularly harass and attack their Palestinian neighbors. Palestinians live in a constant state of terror from being beaten, stoned, robbed, and threatened with guns but they refuse to be forced out of their homes or let it interfere with their daily life.

Several international activists from the Tel Rumeida Project live fulltime in Tel Rumeida. They work with volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement, Ecumenical Accompaniment Program for Palestine & Israel, the Christian Peacemaker Teams, and a variety of Israeli groups to accompany, document, and physically intervene to deter Israeli attacks and pressure authorities to better protect Palestinians and prosecute criminal settlers. Israeli soldiers and settlers regularly harass, threaten, intimidate, and stone the international and Israeli activists, but Palestinian children say they now feel safer playing outside their homes.

Even more encouraging, is the potential for a progressive change in the climate. Unlike other accompaniment groups, the goal of the Tel Rumeida Project is to support and empower Palestinians as they stand up against this colonial oppression.

For instance, last Saturday we got a call that settler children were throwing rocks at Palestinian passers-by. When we arrived, we found five 9-13 year-old settler boys hanging out in the Israeli military post. Palestinians immediately came out of their houses to tell us how the settler boys had just stoned them while the soldiers watched. The settler boys started throwing more rocks, some from inside the military post, and we began arguing with the soldiers that they should protect the Palestinians (supposedly a part of their job). The soldiers argued with eachother about what to do while we supported the Palestinians, including a mother and daughter, as they confronted the settler boys. Palestinians yelled at the settlers and soldiers for putting them through all this, and the Israelis were visibly intimidated. More settler children came out and began throwing stones, so we stood in front of the Palestinians. I got hit pretty hard in the leg, but the soldiers started trying to stop the settler boys, which made the soldiers a target for their stones. The situation escalated, but our presence supported the Palestinians’ expression of their outrage and prevented Israeli soldiers from repressing this Palestinian resistance.

Cordova School is a Palestinian girls’ school located directly across from Israeli settlement apartments and a settler school. Settler children often harass Palestinian students and teachers as they pass by. Yesterday was the first day of school for Palestinians, so we brought a team of internationals and media to accompany the children. Two Israeli military jeeps and a police jeep arrived shortly after us. All in all, there were 25 internationals, 12 soldiers, and four police officers to get around 100 Palestinian girls to school.

There were fewer internationals and soldiers for the girls’ afternoon walk home, and the settlers escalated their attacks. They threw stones and eggs from their apartment windows, while others hollered insults and threatened us. The Israeli police (who’s job it is to arrest settler law-breakers) also became a target of the settler violence, but they did nothing to stop it. We continued patrolling the area for the rest of the day, trying to have a presence in all the areas where settlers and Palestinians interact. “We’re like human security cameras,” one activist commented, “we never let the settlers out of our sight until we know another international can see them”.

A little before 2pm, several internationals had to leave and we went out to meet their replacements. On our way back in, we got stopped at the recently upgraded Tel Rumeida checkpoint. What used to be a green tower with concrete blockades is now a fortified trailer with metal detectors and electronic sliding doors. They’ve even tried to make it prettier by painting it to look like the white stone of the surrounding ancient buildings. An Israeli soldier at the checkpoint said that they would no longer allow in any internationals that are part of organizations, “Only tourists and residents” he said. We tried to explain that we are residents and have a house in Tel Rumeida, but because he had seen us doing accompaniment and documentation work he refused us entry. To go around the checkpoint, we had to wind through back allies, scale a wall, and crawl under grapevines.

During this time, a group of settlers took advantage of our absence and attacked several Palestinians. We found a 13-year-old Palestinian boy with cuts and bruises on his arms and stomach. He said a group of around 20 settlers in their late teens had surrounded him and beat him with sticks for around ten minutes. Other settler youths threw large stones a group of Palestinians, injuring an older Palestinian woman’s leg. We accompanied the Palestinians to file reports with the police, and then became more diligent with our patrols.

Things came to a head around 5pm, when a large group of settler children, some in masks, (observed from the hill by their parents and other settler adults), began throwing large stones and other debris at Palestinians, internationals, and Israeli soldiers in the area. One international was injured on her hand when she blocked a sharp rock from hitting her head. When the police arrived, the settlers briefly dispersed but then quickly regrouped. They began intensely stoning the police, who did nothing but videotape and stay in the protection of their armored jeeps. More police arrived and drove into the settlement area, and eventually an officer grabbed a settler boy. A small riot ensued, and settlers attacked the police officers.

Later in the evening, Palestinians reported that settler boys intensely stoned two Palestinian homes. Saturday, the Jewish holy day Shabbat, is a busy day for settler religious fanatics.

All in all, we hope that the settlers now know that their days of terrorizing Palestinians with impunity are over. Though the Israeli violence continues, Palestinians are now armed with international and Israeli activists, cameras, video-cameras, potential lawsuits, and contacts with the international community. I feel privileged to be able to stand with Palestinians in their struggle, it’s an honor to be stoned along side them.

Read Joe’s blog, Lovinrevolution.

Settlers and Shepherds

by Greta B

Saturday, September 3, the day after the demonstration in Bil’in, two of us boarded a bus bound for Hebron, a town of 130,000 Palestinians, 600 lunatic settlers, and thousands of soldiers and police to ‘guard’ the settlers. Arriving at noon on Saturday, the day most settlers run rampant over everyone, we were told to immediately go to the top of the hill that separates settlers from Palestinians.

Within a half hour, several settler boys between 10-17 came strutting down the road toward the small Palestinian children playing in front of us. The children left immediately, and we turned on our cameras as they advanced toward us. The older boys egged the younger ones to pick up stones and throw them at us two women who were sitting on a stoop. Stones came flying through the air, hitting me in the hand and thigh. Two soldiers who had been standing there watching finally called the police.

I screamed at the boys and started up the hill after them, only to be pulled back by the soldier who said, “I’m sorry, but they get very upset when they see a camera. You need to put it away.”

“Put it away? Not on your life. You think I’m going to let those damned thugs get away with throwing stones at two women who were sitting there doing nothing?”

“I know, I know, but there’s nothing we can do about it. They’re under 12 years old.”

“Then take their parents in. Collectively punish them the way you do the Palestinians. Fine the crazy bastards.”

You get the idea of the conversation.

We had taken plenty of video and could clearly see which boy had hit me. The soldiers suggested we take it to the police station the next day, and, if we left, they would stop them right away. Well, these nasty kids began a full-on riot, throwing stones at the police and army, throwing pipes off the top of their settler apartment at homes beneath them, screaming obscenities, throwing garbage and flashing mirrors in the faces of the soldiers. Little settler girls started to come down and throw stones.

It was so disgusting, I finally left. The rioting went off and on for hours, into the night, where they threw boulders onto the homes of the Palestinians.

One Palestinian man called us and asked us to come to his home. The settlers had come in the week before, and they had cut through every single grape vine that he had, vines that were over 100 years old, thick as my thigh. When he called the army, they had come in and said, “Go back in your house or we’ll kill you.” He had no choice, and every single vine has been cut in half. He took us out and pointed at one.

“That one has a shoot growing already. They’ll come back someday.” My God, what could any of us say in the face of that optimism and courage?

I spent all day Sunday and Monday at the police station making out a report and giving them video tape of the attack. One policeman said, “I really sympathize, but there’s nothing we can do. They’re under 12.”

“That hasn’t stopped you from punishing Palestinian families when their kids throw stones… and you have 600 Palestinian children between 13-14 years old in jail.”

After an hour of increasingly hostile conversation, he finally admitted that the last time he had tried to stop them, they had slit all 4 of his tires. Another policeman said that they had broken his windshield.

Nothing will happen. Nothing will be done. These teenagers will grow up to be the worst kind of thugs, and even the police admit that. 600 of them have made life miserable for the Palestinians; they have closed the stores, thrown excrement and stones on the tops of homes, cut the trees, chain sawed the grape vines.

Yesterday, I went to Qawawis, a small village of 40-45 shepherds. We had gone for the day to protect them from the settlers, who have beaten them and killed their sheep. Several settlers had beaten a man who had already been badly beaten last year and had gone to Iraq for surgery. He refused to make a complaint, more afraid of settlers and knowing that, even with 3 internationals, 2 UN observers who check in once in a while, and an Israeli from Tayyush, they will find him and kill him.

I am tired, I am hot, I am dusty, I finally had a shower after three days. I am burned, and I wonder what the hell I’m doing here and if we make one bit of difference. Israel is committing silent genocide on a people who have been ignored and villanized for 57 years. The children look at us with big eyes and ask us why the world doesn’t see what is happening.

What do I tell them? That the police and army refuse to see what they’re doing? The policeman yesterday, a Sephardic Jew, admitted to me that he knew he was a second class citizen in a racist society. “But at least I’m a Jew.” he said. God help us all.