CPTnet
4 November 2013
SOUTH HEBRON HILLS: CPT releases new video, “Masafer Yatta Under Israeli
Occupation”
Christian Peacemaker Teams’
Palestine team has just released a new video about the Masafer Yatta area,
featuring the Al-Fakheit School, an “archway to the future.”
Although the twelve-minute production
presents the realities that the people living in the region face—their homes
under constant threat of home demolition, Israeli military exercises disrupting
their lives—the film is surprisingly uplifting, filled with faces of the
children and adults who live in the scattered villages around the school, and
whose lives the school has greatly enhanced.
Before Al-Fakheit school was built
in the area the Israeli military calls “Firing Zone 918,” the children of the
region had to live in Yatta during the school year or did not attend school at
all. For many students, school is
their primary leisure time of the day.
They also receive services from the Palestinian Authority such as
psychological counseling to deal with traumas they face as a result of living
within the Firing Zone.
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| Driver Mufid Abu Qbaiyta |
CPT’s Palestine team takes turns
with Italian peace group Operation Dove and EAPPI accompanying a jeep donated
by UNICEF and the Japanese government for transporting children to the school
in the Firing Zone, because the Israeli military has confiscated the vehicles
of other Nongovernmental Organizations working in the region. On 27 October, soldiers stopped the
driver, beat him up, and forced him to drive the jeep over spikes so that he
could not pick up the children.
The video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45RQq3Maykg
#GIVINGTUESDAY Since the release of this video, the Israeli military has confiscated the vehicle used for transporting the children to Al-Fakheit school. CPT Palestine, EAPPI and Operation Dove do not have enough volunteers to provide the accompaniment really needed to protect the driver and the vehicle. CPT Palestine has a 3-year plan that would vastly expand the nonviolent training reach of the team and the incorporation of Palestinians into the Palestine team. In an atmosphere where very few good ideas are being presented for peace in the region, are you willing to support something creative and a little bit risky?
