CPTnet
March 19, 2001
Hebron Update: February 21- March 9, 2001

Wednesday, February 21, 2001 - curfew
Team members attended the Sabeel Palestinian Ecumenical Centre
Conference in Jerusalem scheduled from February 21-24. The five
chartered buses taking participants from Jerusalem to Ramallah were
stopped at a Ramallah checkpoint and detained for approximately an
hour. After sustained demands by Sabeel Director Naim Ateek for the
right of passage, the buses and participants were permitted entry.

Thursday, February 22, 2001 - curfew imposed at 5:00 P.M.
At 10:45 A.M. Anita Fast heard two shots fired near the CPT
apartment.

Team members led two bus tours from the Sabeel Conference to
Hebron District and City sites of settlements, home and orchard
demolitions.

Friday, February 23, 2001 - curfew imposed at 5:00 P.M.
Some of the female Team members and Sabeel Conference participants
joined in the weekly noon-hour vigil calling for an end to the
occupation, held by the Israeli group ³Women in Black," at a busy
centre in West Jerusalem. At one side of the square, populated by
over one hundred women, was a counter demonstration by about six
members of the Jewish extremist group, Kach. A CPT member engaged
in dialogue with one of the Kach members, a 15-year old boy from the
settlement of Kiryat Arba. Upon realizing the association of the Team
member with CPT, the boy said, ³You're the ones with the red hats.
The Hebron settlers don't like you. The soldiers don't like you either."
He responded to the CPT member's request for a further opportunity
to talk with him in Kiryat Arba by saying that he didn't think that was
a good idea.

At around 1:30 P.M. there were repeated sounds of concussion
grenades on Shalalah Street in Hebron.

Saturday, February 24, 2001
Team members attended the Sabeel Conference activities in Bethlehem
area. The eight chartered buses were stopped at the Bethlehem checkpoint
known as Tantur and detained for approximately an hour. Conference
participants disembarked and used this time to hoist banners decrying
the occupation and its attendant abuses. Sabeel Director Naim Ateek
and supporters were eventually successful in their demands for
passage for all on foot, with the exception of one Israeli Palestinian.
³Nadia's" identification was taken, and eventually returned to her,
conditional upon her turning back. Escorted by a few conference
participants, Nadia used the Tantur detour route, commonly used by
Palestinians to circumvent a checkpoint at which they are routinely
denied passage based on Israeli issued identity permits. Empty buses
were permitted direct passage, and picked up participants on the other
side of the checkpoint.

Returning to Jerusalem from the Bethlehem area, Team members and
conference participants joined Israeli peace groups in a demonstration
calling for an end to the occupation, at the same Tantur checkpoint.
Most members and participants who wished to join in the
demonstration were forced to use the Tantur detour route, rather pass
directly through the checkpoint. A few CPT members spent time
engaged in dialogue with soldiers, demanding, and eventually
succeeding in obtaining, direct passage through the checkpoint.

Monday, February 26, 2001
CPT members met with and responded to questions posed by two
members of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group on settler
provocations and attacks on Palestinians during this current Intifada.

Tuesday, February 27, 2001
Four members of Doctors Without Borders met with CPT, relaying
current challenges to their work posed by road closures, and their
recent focus on psychological damage to Palestinians, particularly in
the Israeli controlled area of H2 in Hebron. They noted that clinics in
the area are not equipped to provide psychological help. Dianne Roe
and Greg Rollins took them to homes where soldiers are stationed on
rooftops. Neighbours relayed stories of trauma sustained by their
children evidenced by bedwetting and feelings of suicide. The doctors
immediately took a one year old child to the hospital upon diagnosing
respiratory problems.

Dianne Roe visited families in the Wadi Ghuus area next to Kiryat
Arba, obtaining an update on a man recuperating after a bullet pierced
his back and cheek. Palestinians told her stories of soldiers urinating
in front of women, settlers with guns threatening Palestinians, and of
border police stopping children on their way to school when there is
curfew on in Hebron. (See upcoming release: Lessons Learned... and
Not)

Wednesday, February 28, 2001
The Team held an Ash Wednesday Service, with some members
beginning a Lenten Fast, following a Lenten Calendar of observance
and prayer for people and events associated with Israel-Palestine.

Thursday, March 1, 2001
CPT members met with a Beit Ummar municipal employee, and the
owner of the unfinished home which was demolished in Beit Ummar
on February 20th. (See February 20 release: Israeli military destroys two
homes in Beit Ummar.) The owner confirmed that he had never received a stop
work
order or demolition order on the house, and that his lawyer has asked
the High Court for such documentation, but to date has received
nothing. The Team discussed next steps with the owner, including the
possibility of rebuilding on the same site. Through subsequent
discussions with other Beit Ummar residents, the Team learned of
orders received recently, including a stop work order on a home, an
evacuation order on a workshop for its demolition, and a stay on
demolition orders of five homes.

While in Beit Ummar, the Team received a call that settlers were
gathering on Route 60 by-pass road in the Beqa'a. Three members
went to investigate, but the settlers had by then already dispersed. No
incidents or injuries were reported.

Saturday, March 3, 2001
En route to Hebron from Jerusalem, Rebecca Johnson witnessed the
detention of a Palestinian man at the Bethlehem checkpoint. Israeli
soldiers demanded that he disembark, because his
identification did not satisfy them. The van proceeded without him.

Rick Carter witnessed two settler boys throw a stick in the face of an
elderly Palestinian man. Soldiers nearby said and did nothing to the
children. The man said to the soldiers, ³If they had been Palestinian
boys, you would have shot them."

Dianne Roe and Johnson met with staff at the Women's Counselling
Centre in Hebron who told them that women who come to the centre
for assistance now, come with problems direc