July 22, Wednesday
Six families in the Hebron region (Yatta, Beqa'a, and Daharia)
received demolition orders earlier in the week giving them one-week to destroy
their own houses or have the military do it for them and bill them for the
costs of the demolition. The one-week notice concerned CPTers because most
orders specify a one-month period. It is not clear whether this represents a
change in policy (see 7/23 release.)

CPTers noticed settlers had begun to put more anti-arab racist graffiti on the
doors of Arab shops. (On July 17, the Israeli group, Human Rights Defenders'
Team, painted over the on shop doors in the streets and main market of
Hebron.)

July 24, Friday
A little after 9 PM there was a conflict outside the CPT
apartment on Shuhada street between settlers and a Palestinian family. Five
jeeps of soldiers and police showed up and took the Palestinian father and his
daughter to the police station. The Israeli police detained them until 1:00
a.m.

July 26, Sunday
At 8 AM CPTers Jim Satterwhite, Bill Pluecker, and Gene Stoltzfus began a
three-day presence at the home of Fayez Jabber in the Beqa'a valley. His
family was one of six families to receive a one-week demolition order
delivered on 20 July. CPTers stayed at the house until late afternoon, ready
to stand in the way of demolition should the bulldozer come that day.
Fortunately there was no attempt of a demolition, and they had a very good
visit with the family.

Several other CPTers visited four brothers from the Azazmi family who also
received the one-week demolition order on two complete(but not inhabited)
houses and two incomplete houses. The family of fifty members, shepherds of
Bedouin origin and refugees from Beersheba in 1948, currently lives in two
small houses on a remote hillside near the Palestinian village of Yatta. .
The demolition of their four other homes will force them to continue to live
in this over-crowded condition.

In the evening CPTers Mark Frey and Sara Reschly saw Palestinian kids shooting
a firework rocket towards the Beit Hadassah settlement from the H-1
(Palestinian-controlled) area. Explosions from this type of firework had been
heard for several of the previous evenings.

About 11:30 PM one of the team saw two settler children (13-15 yrs. old)
spraying black graffiti in Hebrew on the doors of an Arab shop across the
street, which had been recently repainted by the joint CPT-Israeli painting
project. The CPTer yelled "Hello" at the kids, who then jumped onto their
mountain bikes and rode away.

The next day a soldier translated the graffiti for team members. It roughly
read: "The people of Israel live!"

July 27, Monday
The entire team spent the day at the Fayez Jaber home in the Beqa'a. Again,
no bulldozer showed up. A local television reporter interviewed Fayez and his
family about their situation and general Israeli expansion onto Palestinian
lands.

July 28, Tuesday
CPTers again went out to the Fayez Jabber home for the morning. Although no
bulldozer showed up, the experience of waiting and watching these three days
illustrated for the team the uncertainty which these families face-not knowing
when the Israeli military will come and tear down their home.

On night patrol, CPTers witnessed a small clash between settler and
Palestinian youth by the back entrance to the Avraham Avinu settlement. A
settler teenager claimed that a Palestinian boy had hit him with marbles,
while the Palestinian boy claimed that the settler boy had shoved him. The
settler boy had the marbles in his hand, and he and six soldiers entered a
Palestinian home to try to identify the
Palestinian boy accused of throwing a marble. Several of the soldiers spoke
in an intimidating way to the father of the Palestinian boy. CPTers called
TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) observers, and the situation
gradually calmed down.

The team found out that their next-door neighbors had been without water for
four days. Other families in Hebron have been without water for over 40 days.

A local Palestinian journal told the team, "According to [Hebron mayor
Mustafa] Al-Natsheh, Israel has decreased the amount of pumped water to Hebron
from 10,000 cubic meters a day to 5,000 cubic meters. . . The Hebron area
is actually in need of 25,000 cubic meters everyday."