CPTnet
10 December 2012
AL-KHALIL (HEBRON): Solidarity rolls in after
Israel demolishes a village mosque
At 8:30 a.m. on 8 December, two members of Christian
Peacemaker Teams (CPT), along with members of the International Solidarity
Movement (ISM) met in Al Manara Square and loaded their bikes onto a bus headed
for At Tuwani. In At Tuwani this group of internationals and their bicycles met
with a group of Palestinians and Operation Dove and then marched and rode
together to Um Fagarah. Around fifty people walked and rode, including women
and young children.
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On the road to Um Fagarah the group passed a settler outpost,
one that is illegal under both Israeli and international law. Settlers from
this outpost had photographed the mosque at Um Fagarah and petitioned the Israeli
military (IDF) to demolish it. On 6 December the IDF obliged and demolished the
mosque, which also had served as a school for the village.
After marching and riding past a police vehicle and four IDF
vehicles, the group gathered in Um Fagarah around a pile of rubble – all that
was left of the mosque. Here members of the Jewish-Arab partnership
organization Taayush and the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine
and Israel joined the gathering, which had grown to around a hundred witnesses
to the mosque’s demolition offering their support to Um Fagarah village.
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| rubble from mosque destroyed by the Israeli military in Um Fagarah |
After the gathering in Um Fagarah, the CPTers, together with
members of ISM, Operation Dove and Taayush, walked to Al Fakheit, one of eight
villages facing demolition for being in what the IDF calls Firing
Zone 918, as a sign of solidarity and to show that this inhabited area should
not be a firing zone. The group drank tea with a family in the village before
walking back to At Tuwani.
Ecumenical Accompaniment
Programme in Palestine and Israel
International Solidarity
Movement (ISM)
Operation Dove
Taayush
