Tag: South Hebron Hills

Wave of demolitions in Jerusalem, Jordan Valley and South Hebron

25 November 2010 | ICHAD & Al Jazeera
Following the demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley yesterday, this morning the Civil Administration accompanied by large Army and Border Police forces demolished a mosque in the Jordan Valley and several structures in the South Hebron Hills.

Yesterday the Ministry of Interior demolished a Palestinian home in A Thuri, East Jerusalem, displacing a family of 7 including 4 children. The family had been living in their 60m/sq home for more than 8 years and were unsuccessful in years of court battles to resist the demolition. Settlers moved into another Palestinian home close-by on the Mount of Olives after a Palestinian family lost court battles to remain in their home and were evicted from the premises 3 years ago. A new court ruling this week gave the green-light to the settler take-over.

Today Civil Administration representatives along with armed border police forces destroyed a mosque in the East Tubas Bedouin village in the Jordan Valley, following the demolition of 4 structures displacing a family of 12 yesterday in the neighbouring village of Abu Al Ajaj. The recent escalation in the Jordan Valley comes after a spate of settler aggression over the last month amid attempts by the Massu’a settlement to annex adjacent lands from the Abu Al Ajaj community, in the Al Jiftlik area.

Jordan Valley Solidarity have requested volunteer assistance both with recovery and salvage from the recent demolitions, as well as to provide accompaniment for local communities at risk of settler violence. For further details visit Jordan Valley Solidarity.

Earlier this week a Palestinian family was forcibly evicted from their home by settlers in Jabal Mukabber, East Jerusalem, and the Bedouin village of Al Arakib in the Negev was demolished for the seventh time.

Israeli soldiers detain five Palestinian Schoolboys in South Hebron Hills

21 November 2010 | Christian Peacemaker Team

At-Tuwani – Claiming that the children were throwing stones, Israeli soldiers detained five Palestinian schoolboys.

Since the beginning of 2005, the children from the village of Tuba wait every morning for an Israeli army escort to accompany them to the school in At-Tuwani, along the shortest road that goes through the Israeli settlement of Ma’on and the illegal outpost of Havat Ma’on. The escort’s task is to protect the children from the violence of the Israeli settlers of Havat Ma’on.

On the morning of November 21st, Palestinian schoolchildren had been waiting for over an hour near the settlement chicken barns when, at about 8:50 am, the soldiers arrived to escort the children to school past Havat Ma’on. Instead of escorting the children, however, the soldiers stopped and talked with the settlement security guard while the children waited on the road nearby. While the soldiers and the security guard were talking, two settlers passed the children.

After waiting for 15 minutes, two of the schoolchildren left for school on their own, unaccompanied. The other 13 children waited for another five minutes, then turned around and left to head back home. The soldiers remained with the security guard.

As the children were arriving at their villages of Tuba and Maghayir Al-Abeed, the same soldiers drove up, and, shoving away two internationals from Christian Peacemaker Teams, grabbed five boys and put them in the army vehicle. The soldiers took the boys back to the settlement barns, where, according to the children, they asked them no questions, but made them sit against a barn. After holding them for 15 minutes, the soldiers released the boys.

As the boys were leaving, the captain told the internationals “tell the children’s parents that if the boys throw stones again, it won’t be like this time. There will be problems.”

“I was waiting with the kids for over an hour, and I never saw them throw stones” said Joe Yoder, member of CPT. “Even if they were throwing stones while they were playing around, I don’t see how that’s an offense that merits soldiers coming into their home and carrying them off like criminals. If the army would just arrive on time, then there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.”

Schoolchildren from Tuba and Maghayir al Abeed rely on the Israeli army to escort them past the settlement of Ma’on and the illegal outpost of Havat Ma’on, where Israeli settlers have committed acts of violence against the schoolchildren in the past.

These kinds of incidents are the evidence of the Israeli military escort’s failure to protect the children from settler’s violence. In the last school year, the children were attacked 19 times, they waited for the escort 53 hours and they missed almost 27 hours of classes.

Operation Dove: South Hebron Hill Settlers attack Palestinian boy and internationals

21 October 2010 | Operation Dove

At-Tuwani – On Thursday, 21st October, at around 9.20 am, two Operation Dove volunteers, coming back to the village of At-Tuwani after having visited some Palestinian families in the village of Tuba, were attacked by Israeli settlers from the illegal outpost of Havat Ma’on (Hill 833).

While walking, the internationals received a phone call by a Palestinian shepherd who was with his flock on a upper hill and warned them about some settlers who were quickly approaching. A few minutes after the phone call, two settlers, faces covered by t-shirts, appeared  where the internationals were walking. They shot stones with slingshots at the internationals who quickly ran away.

Later on, a few minutes after 1 pm in the same area, there was a similar attack on a Palestinian boy walking back home through the path on Meshaha hill. Two Operation Dove volunteers were on the top of the close Kharrouba hill to monitor the afternoon military escort of the school children from Tuba and Maghayir al Abeed when they saw an Israeli settler quickly coming out from the outpost, covering his face and calling reinforcements. Few minutes later, three more masked settlers appeared on the top of Meshaha hill and, together with the first settler, started to throw stones against the Palestinian. The boy, after running down in the valley, joined the internationals on Kharrouba hill and stayed with them until the settlers disappeared inside the outpost.

Israeli soldiers, who arrived after being called by the settlers, asked the internationals what had happened and if, according to them, the problems were in some way connected with the Palestinian olive picking activity. The commander then declared he was not proud of the settlers behavior and suggested the internationals call the police every time anything similar happens.

After the settlers attacked At-Tuwani village on June 12th 2010, internationals living in the area documented no other aggression during the summer. These latest events, preceded by the aggression of October 12th when two Israeli masked settlers chased two Palestinian young men and threw stones at them, appear to be a significant renewal of settler violence.

These kinds of incidents are frequent in the South Hebron Hills area, where national-religious settlers from settlements and outposts used to attack shepherds and farmers to intimidate and drive them to abandon their land. These illegal actions usually remain unpunished and, in many cases, happen with the complicity of Israeli army and police. The Palestinian community of this area choose to resist the continuous abuses of Israeli settlers and military with nonviolence.

Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Civil Administration backtracks on granting Palestinians access to Bir el-Eid

Amira Hass | Haaretz

6 January 2009

The Civil Administration ordered Palestinian residents of the West Bank this week to stop erecting tents and building animal enclosures in the Bir el-Eid area – even though the state allowed them access to the site only two months ago, after a 10-year enforced absence and a protracted legal effort.

Tomorrow, the Civil Administration’s supervisory committee is to discuss the next step, which could involve demolition of the tents and restoration of the site to its prior condition. The site, which is in the southern Hebron Hills, is in Area C, meaning that since the Oslo Accords, it remains under full Israel control.

Beginning in the 1990s, settler harassment and police inaction led the residents of the small village to flee the caves where they were living. The huts, fencing and stone structures that they used primarily to graze sheep, as well as tents which were erected in the area, were damaged during the Palestinians’ 10-year absence from the site.

Their legal battle, which they fought with the assistance of the advocacy group Rabbis for Human Rights, resulted in an injunction requiring the Israel Defense Forces to allow the residents to return to the area.

Two illegal settlement outposts, the Lucifer Farm and Mitzpeh Yair, are just a few kilometers from Bir el-Eid. Unlike the settlements and outposts, the Bir el-Eid land has been worked and settled at least since the 19th century, if not before. Also unlike the outposts, Bir el-Eid is not connected to the electricity grid and does not have an outside water supply.

Over the past two months, the residents have been involved in restoring the site for agricultural and residential use. Monday’s orders from the IDF to stop work at the site were distributed at 12 tents, most of which were being used as residences. The orders were also sent to a tin shack, a goat enclosure constructed of stone, iron and sheets of cloth, and two stone structures.

The families who have returned to the area are based in the village of Jinbah, about three kilometers to the southeast. Residential caves and wells in the region are evidence of the long-standing Palestinian presence in the area, but Israeli authorities prohibit the cave dwellers in Bir el-Eid, and throughout the southern Hebron Hills, from building permanent housing on the land.

Is it illegal to go to school?

25 December 2009

Is it illegal to go to school? That question has been asked many times in occupied Palestine.

On 20 December 2009, the Israeli military confiscated a Palestinian vehicle used to transport children to and from school in al-Fakheit in the southern tip of the West Bank, as they were returning from school. Israeli soldiers stopped the vehicle, forced the children to walk home, and took the vehicle to a nearby military base across the Green Line in Israel.

It is not new for the Israeli military to harass Palestinian children going to school. The policy of the Israeli government has been to remove the Palestinian people from the South Hebron Hills, and they say, turn the area into a military firing zone. Not only have the Palestinians resisted leaving the area, they are returning to their village homes.

The Israeli military has banned schools in the area, forcing childen who live in the area to live with realitives in nearby cities.

The Israeli military claims there were problems with the registration papers for the vehicle. Local Palestinians claim the Israeli military is trying to ban all Palestinian vehicles from near the Green Line.

The next day, the Palestinians took the children to school with a tractor. The struggle continues.