CPTnet
November 10, 2001
Hebron Update: October 14 20, 2001

Sunday, October 14 - No Curfew
CPTers Mary Lawrence, Anne Montgomery, and JoAnne Lingle joined a group of
thirty Israelis and internationals going to the Palestinian village of Tekoa
to join Palestinian residents in a non-violent demonstration. The
demonstration was to address the town's closure and siege by Israeli
soldiers, tanks, and roadblocks.

Before arriving, the group was met by over fifty machine-gun toting Israeli
soldiers and police who would not let them pass, declaring the area a
"closed military zone". Israeli settlers were allowed to pass on the road
while the other Israelis and internationals were held up and their
Palestinian drivers threatened with the possibility that they would not be
able to renew their licenses. Unable to get to Tekoa, the group eventually
returned to Jerusalem.

Later, the mayor of Tekoa reported that a peaceful demonstration, comprised
mostly of elderly Palestinian residents from the village, went ahead
without the Israelis and Internationals, and was surrounded by Israeli
soldiers who fired tear gas at the crowd without provocation.

Monday, October 15 - No Curfew

Re-Occupation of Palestinian neighborhoods ends.

In the early morning hours, Israeli tanks and soldiers withdrew from the
Abu Sneineh and Hart iSheik neighborhoods in Hebron without
incident. Israeli settlers in Hebron protested their withdrawal, along
with right-wing members of the Israeli Knesset (government).

While on patrol, CPTer George Weber spoke with the headmaster of a boys'
school in the old city of Hebron, noting that it was good to see so many
Palestinian shops re-opening after the long stretch of curfew. The
headmaster agreed, but emphasized that there were not many
shoppers. Another Palestinian man walking with Weber spoke in the same
vein: "Life is hard for many people", he said. "Some are selling family
heirlooms for money to buy essentials." Curfew, unemployment, and business
strangulation due to the cutting off of the countryside and markets are
destroying the livelihood of most Palestinians.

CPTers Anita Fast and Lingle, along with Israeli friend, Harriet Lewis,
visited Palestinian families in the village of Beit Ummar, north of
Hebron. Families told them that nearly every day soldiers shoot tear gas
and rubber bullets into the village, sometimes in response to Palestinian
boys who are throwing stones, and sometimes unprovoked. CPTers also
noticed Israeli soldiers and tanks occupying the main vegetable market in
the village, and later learned that the Israeli military had taken over the
market and declared it a "closed military zone".

CPTers LeAnne Clausen and Lawrence investigated reports from the Hebron
municipality regarding some new "plastic buildings" behind a Palestinian
home on Tel Rumeida. Behind the Bakhri home near the Israeli settlement on
the hill, CPTers found some make-shift shelters built on the Bakhri land,
and some stones and tiles being used as building materials. The mother of
the Bakhri family showed Clausen and Lawrence how settlers had removed one
wall of bars she had put up around her home to protect it from the
settlers, and set fire to her laundry. One burnt stocking was left on the
clothesline.

Tuesday, October 16 - No Curfew
Weber accompanied Abdel Hadi Hantash of the Palestinian Land Defense
Committee to the Abu Sneineh hills, which overlook the old city. Weber
documented damage that had been done to an Abu Sneineh home during the
week-long Israeli occupation of the neighborhood that ended early Monday
morning (see above). The home was riddled by gunfire, and many parts had
undergone structural damage. The family reported that forty-two people had
lived
in the home one week ago, but most had fled. At least eight other homes in
the area were also targeted by the Israeli military and sustained damage.

Arik Ascherman, from Rabbis for Human Rights, called CPT to
report that four or five settler "vigilantes" had attacked the cave
community of Twamin in the south Hebron hills today. They demolished a
number of dwellings and goat pens, and generally "tore up the place".

Wednesday, October 17 - No Curfew
News from Jerusalem arrived that Israeli Minister of Tourism, Rehavam
Ze'evi, had been shot and killed by members of the PFLP (Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine) in a hotel in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon announced that "a new era" in dealing with the
Palestinians had begun.

The assassination was in reprisal for the assassination by Israeli death
squads of Abu Ali Mustafa, a PFLP political leader, in August.

Thursday, October 18 - No Curfew -
On an early morning patrol, Weber noted that there were many more
soldiers than usual throughout the old city of Hebron.

At 10:00am soldiers forced the shops in the chicken-market, below the CPT
apartment, to close but allowed all other shops in the market to remain
open. Shopkeepers and CPT contacted both the Palestinian and Israeli
District Coordinating Offices (DCO) in Hebron to complain and inquire about
the closure of the chicken-market shops. Neither DCOs were able to explain
why the shops had been closed when there was no curfew and assured callers
that
they would look into the matter.

CPTers Clausen and Lingle went to Tel Rumeida and observed that one of the
new structures on the Bakhri land now had a green tarp for walls, and noted
that construction appeared to be taking place inside the
structure. Settlers had also broken into the downstairs apartment of the
Bakhri home and run an electrical cord from the home into the new structure.

Friday, October 19 - No Curfew
While on patrol, CPTers Lingle and Lawrence met some members of TIPH
(Temporary International Presence in Hebron) patrolling in a jeep. Since
August, due to Israeli security restrictions, TIPH has not been allowed to
enter the Israeli-controlled part of Hebron in their regular cars, but are
now allowed to patrol with this one jeep.

Throughout the day, Israeli forces attacked and invaded nearly all large
urban Palestinian centers, killing at least a dozen people, mostly
civilians, and injuring many more. In Hebron, no further occupation of the
city occurred, in spite of a few volleys of gunfire between Palestinian
gunmen in Hart iSheik and Israeli soldiers early in the evening.

Saturday, October 20 - No Curfew
The market remained open and quiet in He