CPTnet
January 15, 2001
Hebron Update: December 29, 2000-January 4, 2001

As Anita Fast and, Anne Montgomery and Kathleen Kern were
coming to Hebron from Bethlehem, they saw soldiers stopping traffic at the
checkpoint. He told Fast that people could go into Bethlehem, but not out.
When she asked him why, he said, "Government orders."

Kern and Fast visited a friend who lives near the Tomb of the
Patriarchs and Matriarchs. She told them that a 3-4 year old boy had been
hit by the #160 bus the settlers use and injured badly. She also told them
that there had been bombings that week in Gaza and Tel Aviv (The phone lines
to the Old City had been cut by vandals on December 7, 2000 and the team has
not be able to receive regular news as a result.)

On the previous day, one of the feast days at the end of Ramadan, the
friend's nephew had pointed a toy gun at the soldier and said, "Today is our
feast day. You are under curfew and if you do not go inside, I will shoot
you." The soldier told the boy's father that if he did not control his son,
the soldier would hit him.

On the way back from the patrol, Kern and Fast encountered a group of
soldiers playing soccer with a group of Palestinian boys. Fast joined in
for a few moments and then the two women wished the boys "'Eid Said" for the
end of Ramadan and the soldiers "Chag Sameach" for the end of Chanukah.

December 30, 2000
Abdel Hadi Hantash stopped by and told the team that the Israeli
military closure around villages in the Hebron district was being
strictly enforced. He did not think the team could get out to the
families who live in caves near Yatta, with whom CPT and several
Israeli groups have had connections in the last couple years.

The team went out to eat maqlube, a traditional rice dish with the Jaber
family in the Beqa'a Valley. Soldiers continue to occupy the home of 'Atta
Jaber, which has been declared a Closed Military Zone until March 1.

On patrol, Bob Holmes was told that five settler woman had been
pushing stalls over in the vegetable market immediately prior to his
arriving in the area. He then observed four settlers--two teenagers and two
men in their twenties--near the checkpoint on the road into the Abu Sneineh
neighborhood stopping pedestrian traffic. About twenty soldiers and ten
police were there holding back Palestinian youth, but allowing adults to
pass.

After approximately 45 minutes, curfew was declared, the Palestinians forced
to leave and the shops forced to close. About five young Palestinian boys
were arrested when the protested. Afterwards, the settlers left. The team
later learned that the settlers' action was probably due to the killing of
Binyamin Kahane and his wife, Talia, near the settlement of Ofrah by
Palestinian gunmen that day. Several of the couple's children were
seriously injured in the attack. Kahane was the son of Meir Kahane, the
Brooklyn-born founder of the Kach Party, now outlawed by the Israeli
government.

Returning to the apartment, Bob encountered Red Cross/Red Crescent
volunteers delivering 25 pound packages of food (flour, sugar, rice, tea and
lentils) to families. The Kuwaiti Red Crescent has donated 95 tons of food
to people in the Hebron district who have not been able to earn any money
because of curfews and closures.

Concerned that settlers might attack again the home of Atta Jaber in the
Beqa'a Valley as they had the weekend of Dec. 9, Art Gish,
currently living out in the valley approached the soldiers stationed at the
house and told them about the history of the house. They told him they had
orders to protect the house.

As the team prepared to depart for Beit Jala to celebrate New Year's Eve
with the team there, they heard one of the local mentally ill men in the
neighborhood, screaming. Settler women from Beit Hadassah had begun
throwing rolls of materials used to make tents and awnings outside of shops
on Shuhada Street. One of the women knocked over a roll of plastic and
began to drag it behind her as one of the shopowners tried to pull it back.
A soldier videotaped her doing so. A local settler security man intervened
and pulled the woman away. He then spoke in Arabic with Palestinians on the
street to try and calm the situation.

A large number of soldiers had arrived by this time and proceeded to
surround the women and escort them to Avraham Avinu. Fast asked one soldier
why they had not intervened to stop the women and he said the male soldiers
are not allowed to touch the women here because of religious sensitivities.

January 1, 2001
On patrol, Bob Holmes was told that a mentally ill man had just been shot
for violating curfew near the Israeli settlement of Avraham Avinu. When he
arrived, he saw a very large pool of fresh blood on the ground. Someone had
sprinkled sand on it. A local human rights worker told Holmes that the man
had had his foot nearly severed by bullets had lain on the ground for nearly
15 minutes before receiving medical help. Several journalists took "Before"
and "After" pictures which appeared in papers the next day of the man
approaching the checkpoint and then howling on the ground, his foot dangling
from a thin strip of tissue.

Out in the Beqa'a Valley, everything remained quiet. Soldiers closed all
the access roads in the area three times for about an hour each time.There
was shelling by the Israeli military into the neighborhoods surrounding the
Old City.

January 2, 2001
After nearly a month, technicians from Paltel were able to fix the phone
line to the CPT apartment. Because of the curfew and the number of phone
lines cut, the technicians have had a difficult time restoring service to
the approximately 1100 customers in the Old City whose lines were cut.

Israeli soldiers stopped the taxi in which Kern was returning from Beit
Jala. Many other taxis lay stranded along the road and the driver gave his
keys to a passenger so that the soldiers would not confiscate them.

Kern walked about one kilometer with the other passengers until a taxi with
Jerusalem license plates stopped to pick them up. The driver yelled at the
passengers to hurry and get in before the soldiers saw them.

Rick Carter chatted with a soldier for about an hour who told him he was
disturbed by how much the settler children knew about guns. "These children
should be playing with guns; they should be playing games," he said.

The soldier shared with Carter how pressure is o