(On April 18 CPT issued a release describing contention over land where
Israeli settlers are confiscating land on which Palestinians have lived for
generations. This release went out hours before a key actor in the story, a
settler by the name of Dov Driben, was shot and killed. The incident has
recieved international attention with conflicting stories about Driben's
murder.)

On April 19, Israeli settler Dov Driben was shot to death and Palestinian
Moussa Khalil Dababseh was seriously injured near Ma'on settlement close to
Hebron. Driben was well known for his harassment of Palestinians.
The settlers report that a Palestinian wrested a gun away from one of them
and shot Driben. They report that after this incident, a settler shot
Dababseh. Palestinians present report a different story.

CPT member Dianne Roe went with Land Defense Committee member Abdul Hadi
Hantash and American journalist Maureen Meehan to Alia Hospital in Hebron on
Saturday, April 25 to visit Dabadseh. He was still recovering from the
gunshot wounds he received when a settler fired on him as he struggled with
Driben.

Dabadseh was very tired but he repeated what happened to him the week
before. He took his goats to his grazing land when he was stopped by
the settler Driben. They struggled; he heard Dribin shout to the other two
settlers nearby, "Shoot him! Shoot him!" Dababseh reported that one of the
settlers fired, accidently shooting Driben, and that none of the
Palestinians were armed. The settler fired some more and shot Dabadseh, he
said. The shepherd boys with Debadseh threw stones at the attacking
settler. Dabadseh fell unconscious from the gunshot wounds so he
does not know what happened next. He remembers waking up in the
hospital.

Another visitor in the hospital room shared some of the following details.
Ahmed, a Palestinian from Yatta was travelling near the area last Sunday.
He reported that he left the car and walked along the rocky goat paths of
the grazing land. Driben and the other injured settler had already been
lifted by helicopter and taken to a hospital in Beersheba. Dabadseh was
lying motionless on the ground and bleeding from bullet wounds to his chest,
below his right shoulder, and in his right arm. Israeli soldiers, police
and settler security paid no attention to Dabadseh, Ahmed said; they were
trying to round up the shepherd boys from the area who had been involved in
the confrontation.

Ahmed picked up the injured Dabadseh and put him on one of the many
donkeys that were nearby. As he put it, "I stole him from the
soldiers so I could take him to the hospital." The donkey ride was
two kilometers before they reached Ahmed's car and the forty-five
minute ride to the hospital. It was acknowledged by those present
that Ahmed probably had saved Dabadseh's life.