June 4, Thursday

June 5, Friday
CPT-RAB delegation participants and CPT team members spent the day in
the Beqa'a Valley, east of Hebron. Because of its proximity to the
Jewish settlement of Harsina, this area has been the site of land
confiscations and home demolitions. Palestinian friends of the team,
who themselves have had their land confiscated and their home
threatened with demolition, hosted a traditional feast for the group.
Following the meal, a few delegation members and CPTers profiled a
family for the Campaign for Secure Dwellings (CSD). The Palestinian
family has been matched with a delegation participant through the
project.

June 6, Saturday
Fifteen people, including CPTers, delegation members, and Palestinian
friends, assisted the Ibrahim Abu Jindeeya family with their wheat
harvest. The family is one of several who live in the hills in the
Yatta area, southeast of Hebron, in relative isolation. They shepherd
flocks of sheep and goats and grow wheat in the valleys. According to
many of the families, they have been subject to persistent harassment
by individuals from the nearby Jewish settlements of Ma'on and
Karmel. Incidents have included the the burning of wheat and killing
of livestock. The Jindeeya family had their homesite bulldozed in
November by soldiers. Because of the location of the family's wheat
fields in the valley directly below the Ma'on settlement, they felt
especially vulnerable during the harvest and expressed appreciation
for the supportive presence of internationals.

Later that day, some of the group visited the Al-Attrash family in the
Al Sendas area on the outskirts of Hebron. CPT had provided support
while the family, assisted by Palestinian friends and Israeli human
rights groups, rebuilt their home following demolition on March 3 of
this year. [This newly built house was demolished June 11. See news
release.]

June 7, Sunday
Jamey Bouwmeester and Sara Reschly attended the conference, "50 Years
of Human Rights Violations" in Jerusalem. The international
conference was sponsored by LAW, the Palestinian Society for the
Protection of Human Rights and the Environment.

June 8, Monday
Eric Graham attended the LAW conference in Jerusalem.

At night, the Israeli military conducted large-scale exercises in the
streets of the old city. Members of the team heard running footsteps
at about 11 p.m. A soldier told Pierre Shantz that all the combat
troops in Hebron, numbering in the hundreds, were involved.

June 9, Tuesday

A man arrived at the CPT apartment about 4:45 p.m. and said there was
trouble in the Beqa?a Valley. Bouwmeester, Shantz, and Sydney Stigge
left to investigate. Israeli soldiers and civilian police had ripped
up and confiscated irrigation hoses from the fields of the Ibrahim
Jabber family at 3 p.m. They accused the family of stealing Israeli
water, and arrested the eldest son, Fathi Ibrahim Jabber. They fined
him 5000 shekels (about $1,370) before releasing him at the family
home at 6 p.m. The family says their water supply was recently
connected by the Palestinian Authority.

June 10, Wednesday
Bouwmeester, Graham, Stigge, Claire Miller and Anne Montgomery joined
LAW conference participants in a demonstration in East Jerusalem . The
site was the neighborhood of Silwan, where Jewish settlers had moved
into four Palestinian homes in the early hours of the previous
morning. According to newspaper reports, the group, part of the Elad
("To the City of David") Association, cited an Israeli High Court
decision issued 3 months ago, and asserted that they had a right to
occupy the homes. About 150 demonstrators carried signs into the
courtyard of one of the affected houses, decrying human rights abuses
in Israel/Palestine. The Palestinian residents of the home were also
present. Police and Israeli military quickly moved in, calling on
people to leave the area. "This is an illegal protest on private
property," they said, and began to push the demonstrators. A young
woman reacted by striking out at a soldier. When it appeared she was
in imminent danger of arrest, Montgomery, Graham, and Miller succeeded
in ushering her safely out of the scene of action. Montgomery and
Miller then returned to Hebron, while the rest of the team continued
participation at the demonstration. After the demonstrators moved to a
second house, police began physically removing protesters from the
area, kicking, striking, and dragging them. Bouwmeester struggled to
protect a demonstration organizer being beaten by an Israeli soldier
by covering him with his body (see separate release.) Six people,
including at least one Palestinian (but no CPTers), were arrested.

As Miller and Montgomery returned to the CPT apartment about noon,
Shantz was fielding a call from a Palestinian journalist, who said
that Israeli soldiers were uprooting olive trees on Palestinian land
near Yatta. The three and Hart met with the journalist and arrived in
the area, near the Jewish settlement of Beni Haifer, to discover three
military vehicles and thr