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March 14, 2012
Israeli Settlers Eyeing Remainder of Hebron on their "Real Estate Tour"
By JoAnne Lingle
I am in Hebron, Occupied Territories of Palestine, as a member of the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT). Every Saturday there is an "Israeli Settler Tour" of Hebron. More than 100 Israeli settlers and their guests come through the Old City where our Palestinian friends live. During this "tour" by Israeli settlers, Palestinian residents of Hebron are not permitted to walk to or from their homes.
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The protest tent was set up after a car owned by the Abu Heikal family was set afire by settlers while soldiers watched. The family filed over 200 complaints with the Israeli police but has received no response to date. A female member of the family fasted for 40 days in the protest tent, but to no avail.
On mats scattered on the ground, 50-plus men and youths with hands held toward the sky offered praise to Allah and implored Allah's aid. As we watched from the tent, we were moved by their implicit trust in their God. After prayers, a friend translated the imam's message for us. He thanked the people for their steadfastness, talked about the IDF's escalation of violence, the 16-year-old boy who was shot in the back by an Israeli soldier in Yatta village in the south Hebron Hills and the two 11-year-olds who were killed by an unexploded ordinance left by IDF soldiers in Sa'ir village near Hebron.
In the afternoon, Hamed Qawasmeh of the U.N., invited CPT and ISM for lunch to thank them for the report about the Golani Brigade's abuses of Hebron Palestinians. We have had word from the U.S. Consulate and the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) -- an NGO created by the Olso Peace Process -- that Israel's notorious Golani Brigade will be leaving in a few days, rather than at the end of May. The Golani Brigade has been brutal in its occupation of the village of Al Khalil, and has threatened CPT members with assault or death for documenting their abuses.
We learned that one-and-a-half hours after we were on Shuhada Street, two women from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) were assaulted by settler men. One woman was punched in the face, the other was pushed to the ground and had wine poured over her while soldiers stood by and did not intervene.
In another round of assaults and illegal detentions, around 9:30pm on Saturday night, March 10, 2012, soldiers knocked down the door of the Palestinian Municipality Inspectors Office which is across the street from us. They detained two of the men, took them to Beit Hadassah where they beat them badly. After the men were released around midnight, they went to the hospital for treatment of their injuries.
So much has happened in the West Bank and in Gaza where 16 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. I don't remember this much violence by the IDF since the 2001-2002 intifada!