CPTnet
September 15, 2001
Hebron Update: September 3-6, 2001

Monday, September 3 Day 5 of curfew
Kathleen Kern accompanied the physics teacher in whose house she had spent
the night past a checkpoint so she could reach her school despite the
curfew (see Update for September 2.)

Representatives of Doctors without Borders stopped at the team's apartment
in the morning to talk about providing some money to buy school supplies
for the neediest children in the Old City. A friend of the team, Zleekha
Muhtasib, who does relief work for families in the Old City happened to
stop in at the same time, so they were able to go through a list of needy
families together.

Muhtasib asked team members if they could accompany children past the
checkpoint leading out of the Old City into the Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of
Macpelah area the next day, since soldiers had not permitted children to go
to school that morning.

Dianne Roe returned from Beit Ummar where she had spent the night with a
Methodist delegation. The delegation accompanied school children from Beit
Ummar past a checkpoint for their third day of school. On the previous
day, the school bus from Arub refugee camp had been turned back. Delegates
accompanying the bus said that the children clapped and sang as it went to
school via dirt roads and through fields.

The delegation then visited an apartment that soldiers had invaded on
August 19 (see Update for August 20.) The soldiers lit a fire on the
rooftop and then wrote the date on a stone. Footprints and neighbors'
reports indicate they climbed a pipe to a balcony. The family fears that
soldiers are planning to install an outpost on the roof of their
apartment. The soldiers invaded again on September 2, exploding a sound
bomb just outside the door in the middle of the night.

Around 5:45 pm, as the team was meeting, they received a phone call from a
family living near the Avraham Avinu settlement, saying that settlers were
again stoning their home. After Roe and Rick Polhamus responded, the
stoning stopped.

Soon after, Greg Rollins and Anne Montgomery responded to a call saying
that someone in the Old City had been shot. They went to investigate and
found about two dozen weeping Palestinians and half a dozen border police
in the market near the settlement of Beit Romano. They found out that a
17-year-old boy had been shot in the head while on his roof. The
Palestinians said the shot came from the Beit Hadassah settlement. Word
came that a second Palestinian man had also been shot and killed from the
settlement while they were there. One of the Border Police told
Montgomery and Rollins, "We wouldn't do something like this." The Border
Police were not trying to control the crowd and appeared tired and
discouraged.

After the crowd dispersed, a Palestinian woman took Montgomery and Rollins
to the home where the first man had been killed and they found six or seven
young cousins of the man 17-year-old there, talking rapidly and
sobbing. His blood marked the roof, porch and stairs. As Montgomery tried
to comfort the children, an announcement of the young man's death appeared
on the TV. Seeing the announcement made the children cry even
harder. (See September 15 release, "Finding the Dead," and September 16
release, "More than
watchmen wait for morning.")

Later, the team learned that soldiers had been injured by a pipe bomb in
the market just prior to the shooting.

Tuesday, September 4 Day 6 of curfew
At 7 AM, Roe and Montgomery went to the Il Ibrahimi School with Zleekha
Muhtasib to make sure that soldiers would not harass the boys on their way
to that school. As they gathered with a few children, one soldier
approached to question Muhtasib. He explained that he had prevented
children from coming a few minutes earlier because he had not known they
were allowed to go to school. He gave Muhtasib permission to go to the
area and tell the children they could come. One mother came out and said
soldiers had treated the children returning very badly the day before, her
daughter in particular. He explained that the previous day had been
confusing, but that this day would be better. The mother told him, "You
are good. The ones yesterday were not."

Montgomery asked the friendly soldier about last evening's incident when a
soldier was wounded. The one injured by the pipe bomb was his friend.

At the Ibrahimi school, a woman from the Takrouri family invited
Montgomery, Roe and Muhtasib up to see the damage soldiers had done when
they entered her house. She said they regularly break down their door and
use their rooftop and rooms as shooting stations. Sabrine Abu Sneineh, the
7-year-old girl killed on August 12 (see Update for August 12) was shot by
soldiers stationed on the roof of her house.

Around 5:45 pm, Muhtasib called and said that soldiers had erected a
permanent blockade to prevent traffic from coming close to the Old
City. Vendors in the Old City will thus have an even more difficult time
getting their produce and goods from H-1 into H-2, when or if curfew is
lifted.

Wednesday, September 5, Day 8 of curfew
Kern, Roe, Montgomery and Polhamus went to accompany school children with
Muhtasib. Border policemen were preventing children from the Old City from
passing the checkpoint and yelling at them to go home. The CPTers told the
Border Police to call their commander. The Border Police said the
commanders had already refused to allow the children to pass. After much
talking, the soldiers finally called the commander and received
authorization to let them pass.

The Israeli military lifted the curfew at 1:00 pm.

Rollins and Montgomery responded to a call from journalist Kawther Salam
who said soldiers had shot at her and tried to beat her up. When they
arrived, Salam had a scrape on her chest and said they had thrown a chair
at her. She called the police as soldiers continued to mock and taunt
her. When the police arrived, she went with them to make a statement.

Rollins and Polhamus helped people cross the coils of barbed wire strung
down the middle of the alley where the CPT apartment is located. The
soldiers got angry with them and said the area was a closed military zone.
After the two men left, the soldiers did as well and the people were able
to pass.

Thursday, September 6 Day 9 of curfew
On their way back from accompanying children to school in the morning,
Rollins and Polhamus encountered soldiers who tried to stop them from
crossing the barbed wire in front of the team's apartment. The s