Sunday, February 22
As the team was coming home from a day in Jerusalem, they noticed a
young man being detained across from the Beit Hadassah settlement
checkpoint. As they tried to find out why he was being detained (they
later found out it was because he had no ID), a man came out of Beit
Hadassah and walked rapidly over to the team. He began yelling
directly into Dianne Roe's face, saying things like, Go away! You
are not wanted here. Roe responded, What?s your name? Why do you
want to hurt me? The man continued to yell directly in her face
until soldiers pulled him away. He stalked off, yelling, Filthy
team! and Bitches!?

On their way to a good-bye party for Anne Montgomery, the team saw
soldiers at the opening of the market preventing people from traveling
through the intersection. The team waited for nearly thirty minutes
as the soldiers prepared to blow up a suspicious object. A soldier
later told the team it had turned out to be a ?cake in a box.?

On their way back from the party, Pierre Shantz and Mark Frey saw a
soldier with his boot off being helped into an ambulance. They
overheard observers saying that some explosive device had been thrown
at the checkpoint marking the border between the PA (H1) and Israeli
(H2)-controlled areas of the city.

Monday, February 23
Dubboya Street was closed to Palestinian traffic--evidently because of
some rock throwing near Beit Hadassah and the border between H1 and
H2. Mark Frey and Kathleen Kern asked soldiers whether the closure
was related to the soldier being injured the day before. The
soldier on duty at the checkpoint said, No one was injured here.?

Wednesday, February 25
As team members returned from seeing Anne Montgomery off on a bus to
Jerusalem, they noticed soldiers forcing shopkeepers to close their
stores in a part of the market under Israeli control. They were told
that someone had thrown a molotov cocktail from this area. This was
third day in a row that the shops in this area were put under curfew.

Saturday, February 28
During night patrol, Pierre Shantz and the newly arrived Rich Meyer
encountered a settler pushing a stroller who said, ?Here come the most
anti-semitic pieces of garbage that this _freyer_ government allows
into the country. [An Israeli friend told the team that ?freyer? is a
Hebrew adjective denoting a stooge, or someone who is naively
self-destructive.]

Meyer and Shantz said, ?Shalom.? The settler responded, ?And cowards,
too. One of these days we?re going rip your heads off.?

Passing each other a second time on patrol, the settler expressed
similar sentiments to the CPTers, and Meyer said, ?I?m sorry you feel
that way. The settler responded, I don?t care how sorry you are,
you dirty piece of garbage.

Later that evening, there were fireworks at the Avraham Avinu
settlement. A soldier told Meyer and Shantz that this was the first
Sabbath in the month of Purim, according to the Jewish calendar.

Sunday March 1, 1998
Journalist Charmaine Seitz and cartographer Abdel Hadi Hantash
visited the CPT apartment in the morning. Hantash has been
instrumental in calling Israeli and international attention to the
issues of land confiscation and home demolition in the Hebron area.
He had stories of two new land confiscations in the Hebron district to
report.

Seitz wanted in particular to talk to Hantash about a tunnel started
in Hebron about two years ago (See previous update.) Hantash showed
her a map he received from an Israeli acquaintance of where the tunnel
will be and indicated that it is about 30% finished. It will connect
all the Israeli settlements in Hebron with Kiryat Arba and the
Ibrahimi mosque. Palestinian residents of Hebron have heard heavy
equipment working under their houses and underneath the Muslim grave
yard. In some buildings, the digging has caused structural damage
to their foundations. The Israeli government still denies that this
tunnel exists. Hantash predicts that opening this tunnel could spark
riots such as those that occurred after the tunnel near the Al Aqsa
mosque in Jerusalem was opened in Autumn 1996.

In the evening, a Palestinian friend stopped by during supper. The
team was discussing the Truth Commission in South Africa. The friend
said that he thought it was wrong for people in power not to be held
accountable. He said it was one thing to forgive an 18 year old
soldier who is following orders and it is another to forgive the man
who tortured him when he was in prison. He had a choice to become a
torturer. That was something he volunteered for, said the friend.
He should be put on trial.