CPTnet
July 8, 2003
HEBRON: Israeli Army increases its chokehold on
Hebron's Old City
By Jerry Levin
Since 1999, a spokesperson for the Hebron
Rehabilitation Committee told
CPT, the number of Palestinian residents in the Old
City has shrunk from
about 2,500 to 1,000.
He added that, as a result of last week's Israeli
military order to cease
all restoration work, some 400 workers have been laid
off with no
likelihood of their getting back to work soon or for
long.. The process of
seeking legal relief has begun, but the history of
such actions is that in
the long run the Palestinians lose.
Meanwhile, on July 7th, construction of a new
permanent fence began in the
Ibrahimi Mosque special security zone. The fence,
across the street from
the mosque, will stretch about two hundred yards from
the Israeli installed
gated entrance to the Old City down to where it dead
ends at Shuhada
Street. After gates are installed, a click of a
soldier's key will trap
Palestinian residents behind it in a kind of
mini-ghetto.
Also, on July 6th the army permanently connected two
long- established
outposts situated on the roofs of Palestinian
apartments bordering the
Avrahim Avinu settlement. The installation of metal
steps on the roof of
one home, which completed the connection, was the
catalyst for a day and
night of terror for the mother and her nine young
children.
At about 10am an Israeli soldier, stationed on the
roof struck up a
conversation with the nine year old daughter playing
in the stairwell below.
After learning her last name, he realized it was the
same as a Hebron-based
suicide bomber. When questioned further, the girl
guilelessly acknowledged
he had indeed been a relative, but very distant.A few
minutes later the
oldest daughter, age fifteen, using a small bent
kitchen knife to open the
metal gate to the family's home, because the latch has
been broken for a
long time, unwittingly provided a provocation for the
soldier to tell his
commander that she had threatened him with the knife.
Suddenly the home was invaded by several soldiers, one
of whom, a female,
shoved the fifteen-year-old against a wall to search
for the knife,
bruising her left arm in the process. At about noon,
the soldiers said they
were going to take her away. The mother fearing for
her daughter's safety
insisted on being taken too. So both were blindfolded
very tightly and
transported in a tiring hour's long ride to a local
detention center. The
daughter's blindfold was tied so tight that she cried
for most of the night
because of the unrelieved pain.
When they were released, without charges, at about 8
AM, on July 7th the
mother was told that the frightening night was
"punishment for your
daughter." She also was told not to allow her children
to play on the roof
any more and to stop hanging family laundry there too.
So, it is that final message which may have been what
the mother's and
daugher's day and night of terror had really been all
about.
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