Wednesday, April 29
Abd el Hadi Hantash of the Land Defense Committee reported on several new
developments:

1) The wall between the Israeli settlement of Beit Hadassah in Hebron and a
Palestinian service station has been destroyed by settlers. 2) Abdel Jawad
Jaber in the Beqa'a valley east of Hebron received an order to return all
of the agricultural fields between his house and the new settlement access
road to their original condition by June 12. If he does not destroy his
vineyards and olive groves by that date, the army will do it for him and
charge him for the use of the bulldozer. 3) The Israeli army
seized 83 goats and arrested their owners in Al Bourj (in the western part
of the Hebron district), claiming the goats had crossed the border with
Israel. They released the men but kept the goats.

Thursday, April 30
Israel celebrated its 50th anniversary. Settlers held a demonstration at
Jabal Abu Ghneim (Har Homa) on the border of Bethlehem to
demand that building for the new settlement begin immeditely. Anne
Montgomery, Eric Graham, and Jane Adas attended a smaller Peace Now
counter-demonstration at the foot of the mountain.

Saturday, May 2
Members of the team visited Abd el Jawad Jaber (Atta Jaber's father).
Although he has documents that prove the land has been in his family for
over a century, the Israelis have declared it state land and therefore
subject to seizure. He said soldiers and settlers have come often and cut
pipes, damaged trees, driven their jeep over the wheat, thrown stones, and
set their dogs on the family.

Sunday, May 3
Yaaleh Cohen from Bat Shalom arrived to spend a few days with the team.
David Wilder of the Hebron settler community distributed an e-mail release
entitled, "CPT-Squalor on the Face of the Earth."

Tuesday, May 5
Anne, Pierre, and Dianne Roe visited ARIJ (Applied Research
Institute of Jerusalem) where they learned that at least 3,400 homes in the
West Bank and Jerusalem are currently threatened with demolition.

Wednesday, May 6
Most of the team, with guests and other visitors, went to the Beqa'a to
visit Abd el Jawad Jaber. While there they noticed a bulldozer and an large
back-hoe with jack hammer at work in Palestinian fields on Jabal Sultan, a
hill about 200 yards beyond the area confiscated for a settler gas station.
[See news release.]

Thursday, May 7
Sara Reshly arrived in Hebron and went immediately to Jabal Sultan where the
team maintained a presence while the machines continued their work. A
family in the area invited the team to a traditional Palestinian breakfast
on their patio, within sight and sound of the machines.

A daughter-in-law of the family, who is Palestinian but was born and lived
in the United Arab Emirates until her marriage, explained how she is trapped
in the Hebron area. She was given only a three-month tourist visa, which
was renewed twice. Since then she has remained illegally, because all her
applications for family reunification permits have been turned down. If she
were to be stopped for an identity check, she and possibly her children
would be deported.

Around 2:00 p.m. the back-hoe broke. The settlers were unable to fix it.
Upon returning to the CPT office in the chicken market, the team heard two
loud explosions near the Avrahim Avinu settlement. Racing to the scene,
they learned that the Israeli army had blown up by remote control a
suspicious looking object that turned out to be a bag of garbage.

Friday, May 8
A young man who lives near Kiryat Arba settlement stopped in to tell the
team that at around 11:00 p.m. on Wednesday, settlers threw 3 Molotov
cocktails at their house. One of them hit a wall and bounced back into
Kiryat Arba, setting fire to the vegetation. Kiryat Arba security arrived
to put out the fire. The family called the Kiryat Arba police, who merely
gathered every bit of evidence -- broken glass, matches -- and left.

Saturday, May 9
A young Palestinian man who has a full scholarship to an American university
visited to tell us that university officials said he had a problem with his
Palestinian Authority issued passport: there is no country called
Palestine. The officials add "Palestine -- Israel."

While profiling a family threatened with home demolition in the village of
Beit Omar, Roe, Shantz, and Adas met a man who was shot in the right hand by
high velocity bullet a year ago in April when soldiers fired at boys
throwing rocks. He has had several operations, but his hand remains
disabled. The Palestinian Authority paid for some of his medical expenses,
but he has received no compensation from the Israeli army.

Sunday, May 10
Settlers resumed work at Jabal Sultan. The homeowners, with the help of
attorney Linda Brayer at the Society of St. Yves, are trying to obtain a
stop-work order against them.

Monday, May 11
Dorothy Jean Weaver with 26 people from Eastern Mennonite University visited
the team in Hebron and famlies whose homes