Closure in Hebron

The CPT delegation arrived in Hebron on Monday afternoon to find the main road into the city closed. Soldiers had set up a checkpoint around 7 a.m., our cab driver told us, and were letting cars through intermittently. The checkpoint was set up Sunday after a 25-year-old Hamas activist was killed by soldiers who demolished his home on top of him following a 12-hour standoff. ISM reports that another house was also demolished during the operation.

The checkpoint halted traffic both entering and leaving the city. A Reuters photographer told us that a woman had given birth at the checkpoint about an hour earlier, which a Ma'an report confirmed.

Palestinian Child Killed at Na'alin Demonstration

Israeli soldiers have killed a 10-year-old boy in Na'alin as demonstrations continue against the so-called security barrier, which is set to confiscate 2,500 dunams of the village's land. Ahmed Moussa was shot in the forehead at close range, said eyewitnesses. Ha'aretz reports that boys had been throwing stones after the day's protests had mostly subsided, and soldiers responded by firing live ammunition.

Drops of Water

Everyone the CPT delegation has met over the last few days seems to agree that the situation for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is getting worse. The frustration is palpable, and it’s seen on people’s faces and heard in their comments. “Don’t even think about that,” said our host in Bethany, Issa, when one of our team asked what he thought about the prospects for peace. We hear again and again the stories of broken promises and vanishing optimism. The settlement activity that exploded during the “peace process” has not slowed down since the Annapolis conference; construction of the wall continues; the military closes roads, arrests people and raids houses at will.

The suffering is extreme and ubiquitous. Friday we met Saleem in East Jerusalem, whose house has been demolished four times. After one of the demolitions, his 6-year-old son hid for eight hours in a field, and his wife was so traumatized that she didn’t speak for a month. Saturday we talked to Ahmed in the Arroub Refugee Camp, who has spent 10 years in prison, beginning when he was 16. We also met with a family in Beit Ummar with five demolition orders on their house and the mayor of Beit Ummar who spent 11 months in jail, where he was sometimes handcuffed to a chair for 15 hours at a time.

No one we have talked to is expecting a miracle. Rather they are quick to challenge our naivete if we act shocked by Israel’s actions or look for hope in the legal system or negotiations. Incursions, roadblocks, imprisonment without charge and home demolitions have become normal, and the Palestinians are prepared for them to continue.

But in the people we’ve met so far, this resignation hasn’t led to nihilism or defeat. We met Saleem at a workcamp sponsored by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions where he was leading a group of internationals and Palestinians in the rebuilding of two demolished homes. Ahmed raises money to help the people in his refugee camp. Recently they built a playground and swimming pool, and he also helps raise money to send youth from the camp to college. The mayor of Beit Ummar hopes for a time when relations in Palestine will be governed by human rights and equality. “I hate [the Israelis’] behavior,” he told us, “not their soul.”

There is wisdom in these people, born, I think, partly from decades of suffering and being forced to face questions of justice and injustice, life and death. They do not hope for peace and justice to fall down on them like rain in the desert, but they do continue the struggle for their existence. “It is like a soft drop of water that falls on a hard surface,” said the mayor. “If it falls continuously on the same place, eventually it will leave a mark.”

CPTer Attacked in Tuwanni

On Sunday, settlers from Havot Ma'On beat CPTer Joel Gulledge with a rock and a video camera as he accompanied children to a summer camp. A masked settler approached the 14 children and two CPTers and began throwing stones with a slingshot while other settlers came from another direction. The children ran away unharmed, but Gulledge, who was filming the attack, was caught and beaten. Pictures and a more complete description are here.

Settler attacks in the West Bank have been particularly ruthless over the last few weeks, including setting fire to a house in Burin, rocket attacks from a settlement near Nablus, and an attack near Samua' where a man was tied to pole and beaten.

Update on Abu Rahma Case

The soldier who shot Ashraf Abu Rahma at close range has been released, Ma'an news agency reports, and the father of the girl who filmed the shooting has been arrested at a recent demonstration in Ni'lin.

And so another promise, this one from Ehud Barak that the soldier would be held accountable, appears to be broken. Meanwhile, the Israelis may be about to approve construction of a brand new settlement in the Jordan Valley.

For the past few days, I have been traveling with a CPT delegation, meeting with Palestinians and Israelis and hearing their stories and perspectives on the situation here. There is a certain degree of cynicism in everyone these days, and it is stories like these that keep feeding it.

(Thanks to Free Speech Unlimited to bringing these reports to my attention.)

Abuse of Protester Caught on Tape

On Sunday B'Tselem released a video of a Palestinian protester in Ni'lin being shot at point blank range with a rubber bullet. The man in the video, Ashraf Abu Rahme of Bil'in, is actually a friend of mine from last summer who is active in Palestinian non-violent resistance against the wall. Earlier in the year he was arrested for climbing a crane in order to prevent further construction of the settlement that is confiscating land in his village.

The video of Ashraf was taken by a 14-year-old Palestinian girl as part of B'Tselem's "Shooting Back" program, which has given over 100 video cameras to Palestinians so that they can document settler and soldier abuse. Catching attacks on film can force Israeli authorities to investigate cases of abuse that otherwise would be ignored. More importantly, the presence of video cameras can prevent violence by making settlers and soldiers aware that they can held accountable for their actions.

Watching Their Flocks By Night

On Friday, Marius (the other intern) and I headed for the Negev with some international and Israeli human rights activists. We were planning to deliver water to Tel Arad, an unrecognized village that is not receiving any water from the Israeli government. Our delivery was going to be mostly symbolic; in the current drought conditions, the few dozen litre bottles we were bringing would be no substitute for the water tanker they had been denied.

Marius and I never made it the Negev, though. Just after we crossed the Green Line into Israel our ride, Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights, got a call about an emergency in the South Hebron Hills and we left to investigate.

We arrived at around 3 p.m and two of the men came up to talk to Arik. A handful of children stood by the sheep and goats in the harsh sun, staring at us and whispering to each other. The army arrived a few minutes after us, and we guarded Arik's car while all of them went off to see the site of the attack.

About an hour later Arik came back with the story. About 30 settlers had arrived in cars at 9:30 that morning and attacked the tent where Ahmed, the shepherd, stayed with his family next to caves for their flocks. The settlers took everything - their tent, food, clothes, dishes, blankets.

The soldiers and police were reluctant to take action. Ahmed had talked to a soldier on the road just after the attack. That soldier talked to the settlers and said they were from Kiryat Arba, a settlement bordering H2. The soldier said he would call in police, but none ever came. That afternoon, with Arik there to plead on Ahmed's behalf, the result was not much better. They listened to Ahmed's testimony but said that for lack of evidence there was little they could do. After all, they said, how could they know there had even been a tent there? There was no destruction left to photograph. Ahmed was told to bring proof that he owned the land to the police station on Sunday morning. No one was hurt, a soldier told me back at the car, so everything was now ok and we could go home.

But we didn't go home. The family - Ahmed, Nafiyya and their 16 children - had a place to stay in the nearby village of As-Samua', but they were not to be driven off their land. The parents and the younger children spent the night with the flocks as usual, and Marius, two ISM volunteers and I stayed with them in case of another attack. Arik had arranged for the Red Cross to bring a tent, which arrived just in time for us to put it up together before sundown. Along with the tent were blankets, three mattresses, food, dishes and toiletries. Still, Nafiyya told us as she pointed to her son's remaining T-shirt, they had lost many things that were not found in the four white boxes from the Red Cross.

This family's life is hard even without the regular harassment they endure from the settlers. The sheep and goats require constant attention. I sat up with Meryem, a 16-year-old daughter, until 2 a.m. while she watched the flock. She stays out there three nights a week, never sleeping very much, and also goes to school in As-Samua. After she graduates high school she hopes to study history at Hebron University.

We sat on stones, wrapped in Red Cross blankets, and looked out at the lights of Asah-El, the illegal settler outpost about a kilometre away. "Are you afraid of the settlers?" she asked me. I didn't know how to respond except to say, slowly in my broken Arabic, that if they came we would film them and maybe then they wouldn't want to cause trouble.

I asked Meryem if she had been there that morning when the settlers attacked. For a moment I tried to imagine that the settlers did not effect her, that this girl needed only the strength and resilience to sit up with her family's flock at night and go to school in the morning. But she had been there that morning, she told me, and when the settlers came she ran for her life. It's normal for a few settlers to come and harass the family, she said. They come during the day or the night, whenever they please. But she had never seen so many, and she thought at first they had come to kill her family.

Once again, I didn't know how to respond except to sigh and nod and keep sitting there looking out at Asah-El. The conversation switched back to lighter topics, like a wedding she had attended the day before, and I could pretend again that the challenges of her life did not include the overt and senseless hatred directed at her from the settlers. After a little while I went to sleep and was glad to wake up and find that morning had come without incident.

For Ahmed and Nafiyya's family, the past few days have made a hard life harder. But for now at least they are holding onto their land and their livelihood in an area where to do so is a powerful act of resistance.