CPTnet
11 May 2012
AL-KHALIL (HEBRON) ACTION ALERT: Fast with the prisoners of Palestine

On Monday 7 May 2012, the Israeli High Court of Justice denied the petition of two hunger-striking Palestinians against their administrative detention, meaning the Israeli authorities have never charged them with any crime or given them a trial.  The two prisoners continue their hunger strike, are now on their seventy-fifth day, and are in critical condition.  Their attorneys said they were not allowed to see classified material that the state had cited as grounds for imprisonment.

One thousand six hundred prisoners joined the hunger strike and are now in their twenty-fourth day.   The prisoners are demanding an end to administrative detention, solitary confinement and other punitive punishment measures taken against Palestinian prisoners, including the denial of family and lawyer visits, especially to prisoners from the Gaza Strip to whom the Israeli authorities have denied family visits since 2007.

Prisoners have  face harsh collective punishment from the beginning of the hunger strike.  Some have received fines between 250 (€50) and 500 (€100) shekels for each day of their  strike.  In Naqab prison, prisoners are experiencing daily random inspections that last for approximately forty to fifty minutes.  These inspections include cell and body searches.  In addition, prisoners are no longer permitted to leave their rooms for the daily break period. 

This 15 May 2012 marks the 64th anniversary of the Nakba, when pre-Israeli state paramilitary forces expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948.  The annual Nakba fast this year is focusing on the plight of the prisoners.  CPT Palestine is gravely concerned about the health of the prisoners and in an act of solidarity, team members will be joining the fast.  The  team invites you to join the fast from 7:00 a.m. on 15 May.

At 8:30 on the morning of 2 May 2012, the team received a call from a friend in the Beqa’a valley to inform the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron the Israeli military was destroying his cousin’s reservoir. Two CPTers went to the valley. Upon arriving, they saw two army vehicles, two intelligence service vehicles, and a power shovel digging up the ground on the hill below the friend’s house and filling dump trucks with this material. The friend told them to follow the truck.

On May Day, 1 May, at 7:45 a.m., the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron received a phone call from Noah al-Rajabi in Bani Naim.  Al-Rajabi reported that the army and bulldozers were demolishing his cousin’s home and threatening to demolish the family’s farm. He urged CPT to come and to call the media and other internationals to bear witness to what was happening.  Two CPTers arrived at the main road near the house and saw six military jeeps, three police vehicles, and three intelligence service vehicles at the site.  Initially, the Israeli authorities prevented CPTers from approaching the scene. When they asked soldiers why they were demolishing the farm, a soldier replied, “Because we are the army.”

 On 5 April 2012, I accompanied our neighbor, Afifah *, as she tried to talk to the settlers who were protesting outside a house in a Palestinian neighbourhood from which the Israeli authorities had evicted them so she could understand their view of the situation.

A settler refused to speak to her when she requested a conversation.  Upon enquiring why, he told her that he did not speak to anti-Semites. Afifah told him that they were both from the same origins.  The settler abruptly pronounced that he was referring to me and that CPT was an anti-Semitic organization.  Afifah told him that she had known CPT for many years and did not think that its members were anti-Semitic.  He replied that he had read the CPT website, that everything they posted was anti-Semitic and that they were Jew-hating Christians. 

Hebron is a sacred place because of the cave/tomb of Abraham and Sarah, Rebecca and Isaac, Jacob and Leah.  Today Hebron feels entombed by the Israeli military occupation and colonization.  It is a Holy Saturday that has lasted over forty-five years.  No resurrection in sight—but somehow the winter of all hopes and dreams bears the seeds of a, maybe far off, spring of justice and freedom.  I offer two stories of occupation: one of oppression, one of hope.

 Since publication of the CPT report, Under Attack: Golani Brigade's war on the Palestinian population of Al-Khalil (Hebron), the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade has threatened CPTers with arrest and death several times.  The report documents the recent escalation of human rights abuses in Al Khalil.  These threats are an attempt to prevent CPT and other international organizations from continuing to document ongoing human rights abuses, including violence and harassment, committed by soldiers against the civilian population of Al-Khalil.

According to International law and Israeli law, international observers have the right to document the actions of soldiers unless their presence interferes directly with the military’s duties.  Members of CPT have told soldiers that they are present in Al-Khalil merely to document soldiers’ actions, but have been told by soldiers that they are subject to arrest whenever they attempt to follow military patrols through residential areas, film, or remain present during searches or interrogations of civilians.  Twice in recent weeks, soldiers threatened to shoot or kill a CPT member.  In multiple instances, soldiers used the threat of arrest to prevent CPTers from observing and documenting incidents that included the detention or intimidation of children.

 On 23 February 2012, Khader Adnan broke his sixty-six day hunger strike after reaching a deal with Israel's Justice Ministry.  Soldiers had arrested Adnan on 13 December and Israel had ordered him detained for four months but never charged him with a crime.  The next day, he declared a hunger strike to protest Israel’s policy of administrative detention.  As people involved with the campaign calling for the release of Adnan told us, he was “dying to live.”

On 25 January 2012, CPT Palestine was officially accepted as a member of the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) for Palestine, which operates under the auspices of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Beyond serving as a venue for processing large donations, CAP allows for organizations supporting Palestinians’ right to life, liberty, and freedom to coordinate effective advocacy strategies.

The process also allows groups to share information about the various issues that arise from the Israeli military occupation of Palestine and disturbing trends in all parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

With CPT’s participation in the appeal, CPTers will also be able to expand the communication of their experiences to a wider international audience and participate in targeted lobbying efforts.

Examples of other organizations who have participated in the Consolidated Appeals Process include Church World Service, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Samaritan’s Purse, Save the Children, and Unicef.

To learn more about the appeal see
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ochaopt_cap_2012_full_document_english.pdf

A newly released report submitted to the United Nations by international organizations working in Al Khalil documents a sharp increase in serious human rights violations against Palestinian civilians, particularly youth and children, living in the Old City and Tel Rumeida since the arrival of the Golani Brigade of the Israeli army on 27 December 2011.

Early on the morning of 8 February 2012, more than twenty Israeli soldiers and Border Police broke into at least thirty homes in the Al-Khalil (Hebron)’s Old City.  The soldiers, many of whom are part of a unit of the Golani Brigade, used rifles, boots, and pry bars to break in doors and destroy locks.  Soldiers ransacked more than a dozen houses, ordered families outside into the night, damaged and destroyed property and verbally and physically harassed families who were asleep in their homes when the raid began.  Soldiers also broke down the door of the Ministry of Labor, which was empty in the early morning hours.