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ISM MEDIA ALERT: Hebron residents protest at internal checkpoints

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hebron residents protest at internal checkpoints

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT — The city of Hebron is dissected by a labyrinth of checkpoints that keep people isolated not only from elsewhere in the occupied Palestine, but often from the other end of town. On Saturday at 11:30 a.m., Hebron citizens plan to demonstrate against this limit on travel by marching to one of the internal checkpoints with Israeli and International activists.

While many cities in the West Bank are cordoned off at their borders, Hebron residents must wait hours just to get across town. For the last four years, the internal checkpoints have severely limited resident’s access to the most basic essentials such as school, medical treatment, and shops. Travelers are regularly subjected to searches and as male solders are the norm in the area, women are often not allowed to be searched by female soldiers.

Demonstrators will select one of the internal checkpoints to be protested against as a symbol of all limits on travel for Palestinians.

While that checkpoint is not being named until the march begins, participants are invited to begin gathering at 11 a.m. at the Bab
Al Zaweya town square. Being that Hebron is under a constant siege due to the round-the-clock military presence, a violent response is expected to this peaceful call for the freedom to move from one end of town to the other.

For more information, contact Esssa at 054-789-33-56 or 0599-340-549.

Sharing Each Others’ Pain

By Peggy Gish
CPT Hebron

“A donkey was stolen by an Israeli settler from the Karmel settlement, and we saw it inside the settlement compound. Please come with us to photograph it for evidence when we make our complaint.” two Palestinians asked the CPT and Operation Dove team in the South Hebron Hills village of At-Tuwani.

Two days after an Israeli soldier and a settler told a Palestinian family they were not allowed to use their land either for their sheep or for raising vegetable crops, team members watched nearby while three Palestinian children continued to let their flocks graze.

Another day, the team videotaped Israeli settlers combining and hauling away wheat planted by a Palestinian family on their land, while Israeli soldiers watched and did nothing to stop them.

By mid-June, an unofficial tally counted at least 57 adult and 46 young sheep and goats from the villages of At-Tuwani and Mufakara have died from poison Israeli settlers spread on Palestinian grazing land in March and April of 2005.

As I leave the West Bank tomorrow to return to work with the CPT team in Iraq, I can’t help but think of the differences and similarities between life under occupation in both places. In Iraq there is an inadequate supply of medical equipment and medicines, while in the West Bank, the people are blocked when they try to reach clinics or hospitals. In the West Bank the water is allocated in an unfair proportion favoring Israeli Jews. In Iraq, the available water is mostly impure. In Iraq there isn’t the overt confiscating of the homes and land, but their economy is hurt by U.S. economic policies that allow for systematic takeover of natural resources and exploitation by international corporations.

Palestinian families in At-Tuwani tell us, “Yes, we have our problems but the problems in Iraq are much greater.” In turn, Iraqis tell me, “The Palestinian occupation is the ‘mother of all problems,’ and needs to be resolved in order to have peace in the whole region.” I am impressed by the ability of the Iraqi and Palestinian people and many other compassionate people around the world to look beyond their own troubles and be able to care for the sufferings of others. In both places, we are encouraged by organizations and individuals who take significant personal risks to work non-violently.

Qawawis

End of June, 2005
By M.

Settlers brought their sheep to graze on land belonging to Qawawis. The villagers called the police who did not seem interested. After about 40 minutes a jeep with 5 soldiers showed up. Some men in the village started to talk with them but the soldiers refused to speak with them. They then asked me to speak with them. I asked them why they had come and what they were doing there. They were not happy to speak with me. They pretended not to know English but two of them did.

They first just answered stupid answers like “we are here because it is nice to be in the sun”. Then they said things like “this is Israel, our country, we are here to protect the settlers” and they even said that the people of the village were terrorists.

I’ve got the feeling that they wanted to show their power to do what they want and their contempt for the villagers. They seemed to enjoy seeing the people of the village worried.

After about 40 minutes two settlers came by car. They had a video camera, and were filming the people and the village the whole time.

I went into the house and took some pictures of the soldiers and settlers from there.

The soldiers left a few minutes after they had arrived, and they said they would come back later, but did not say any reason.

B’tselem: Means of Expulsion

Violence, Harassment and Lawlessness Toward Palestinians in the Southern Hebron Hills
Written by B’tselem.
July 2005, Summary
www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/
200507_South_Hebron.asp

In the southernmost West Bank , some one thousand Palestinians have maintained the way of life of their ancestors: living in caves and earning a living from farming and livestock. In the 1970s, the Israeli military commander declared the area a “closed military area,” and for the past five years, Israel has been trying to expel them from the area.

In November 1999, soldiers and Civil Administration officials expelled the cave residents and confiscated their meager belongings. The army sealed caves, destroyed wells and outhouses, and prohibited the residents from returning to the area. The cave residents petitioned the High Court of Justice, and in March 2000, the Court issued a temporary injunction, returning the residents to the area and preventing the state from expelling them until the court reaches a final decision in the matter. Since then, the residents live with the threat of expulsion hovering over their heads.

Israel contends that expulsion of the cave residents is justified because they are not permanent residents of the area, and that the expulsion is an “imperative military need.” B’Tselem’s report demonstrates that these contentions are baseless, and shows that Israel has continually sought to annex the area and expand the nearby settlements.

In addition to the threat of expulsion, the cave residents are victims of violence and property damage from the residents of nearby settlements. Due the intensity of this violence, the residents of two villages to abandon their villages in 2000. In a survey conducted by B’Tselem, some 88% of the Palestinians in the closed military area were victims of settler violence or witnessed such violence against a member of their immediate family. The abuse reported in the survey can be divided into four patterns: blocking of roads and preventing access to fields (51 percent of the cases), property damage, including destruction of crops and theft of sheep and goats in particular (21 percent), intimidation (17 percent), and physical violence (11 percent).

The police do little to enforce the law against the settlers, and the army does even less. In some cases, soldiers have even assisted settlers in carrying out their violent acts. On a few occasions, the army at its own initiative destroyed the residents’ farmland by driving tanks and other armored vehicles onto the fields. In addition, the Civil Administration prohibits the residents from building in their villages, contending that the area is designated for agricultural use. The prohibition also covers construction to ensure proper water supply and to meet other basic needs.

The report documents Israel ‘s attempts over the past five years to expel the cave residents through legal proceedings, and describes the lives of the residents under the intimidation of settlers, the military, and the Civil Administration.

The bleak picture of Israel ‘s treatment of the cave residents, as described in the report, raises the concern that Israel is attempting to gradually wear down the residents to get them to leave the area , an achievement they have not yet been able to attain in court. B’Tselem protests the attempted expulsion and Israel ‘s current policy toward the residents, which severely infringe their human rights and flagrantly breach international law. For these reasons, B’Tselem urges the government of Israel to:

revoke the order declaring the caves area in South Mt. Hebron a closed military area and cancel the eviction orders currently pending against the cave residents;
instruct the army and police to protect the cave residents and to seriously enforce the law against violent settlers;
recognize the right of the cave residents to live in their villages and to build and develop them to meet their needs;
compensate Palestinians whose land and personal property were damaged by settlers, the army, or the Civil Administration.

Harassment in the village of Qawawis

The sheperds living in the hamlet of Qawawis, south of Hebron, live in constant fear of the settlers living in the nearby illegal settlement outpost. All settlements are illegal under international law, but the settlement outpost near Qawawis is illegal, even by Israeli standards, a fact that doesn’t seem to have any effect on the Israeli authorities. The illegal outpost is hooked up to electricity, water and a road that is paved to to the outpost’s entrance. The nearby native Palestinian village has no access to these services.

The outpost — though illegal — is protected by the Israeli military and police, but that protection is not extended to Palestinians in Qawawis. Adding to the problem, the Israeli government has forbidden Qawawis villagers from building structures, even to replace those that have been destroyed by settlers.

The Israeli government has been trying to root Palestinians out of their homes in the Southern hebron Hills for years, but has, as of yet, failed to do so. According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, nearly 1,000 Paelstinians in the area, including those in Qawawis, are choosing to live as their ancestors have for generations, “living in caves and earning a living from farming and livestock.”People in the area point out this way of life serves a purpose aside from ideas about nostalgia: The Israeli military has forbidden villagers from construction on their own land, even to replace those building destroyed by settlers. The caves also provide added security during settler or military incursions.

Israeli officials use the caves to argue that expulsion of the residents is justified because they are not permanent residents, and that the expulsion is an imperative military need.”

I stayed In Qawawis for three days. On the first day, a group of settlers appeared on a hill that is part of the village. The Palestinian family living on this hill had just returned home from a nearby town, where they fled to two years ago to escape settler violence. Shortly after the appearance of the settlers, who carried machine-guns, an army jeep arrived and waited for the settlers to leave for 40 minutes. On the third day a settler car stopped on the settlement road and two settlers came out and walk towards a Shepard and his flock, hurling verbal abuse for about 10 minutes before continuing on their way.

These two incidents ended without violence but this is not always the case. The community lives under constant threat. The families of Qawawis are defenseless. They urgently ask for your help.

B’Tselem is urging the government of Israel to revoke the order declaring the caves area in South Mt. Hebron a closed military area and cancel the eviction orders currently pending against the cave residents. The organization is also calling on the the army and police to protect the cave residents; enforce the laws in protecting villagers from violent settlers; recognize the right of the cave residents to live in their villages; and to compensate Palestinians whose land and personal property were damaged by settlers, the army, or the Civil Administration.