Snow Blankets Hebron

Reprinted from Christian Peacemaker Teams with Permission

By Mary Wendeln

February 1,2008



For days as I walked through the market, the Palestinians commented on the weather –

snow is coming. Now Beautiful snow covers the hills, homes and the streets of Hebron.

Palestinians, Israeli settlers, and CPTers are snow bound in their homes. Normal snow activities abounded

such as:, cancelled events, stranded travelers, snow shoveling and the delightful sounds of children playing in the snow.

For a while even the Israeli Occupation seemed to be at a stand still. Everything seemed normal. Israeli Occupation has no control over Mother Nature.



She did not discriminate over which homes and streets the snow fell. Israeli soldiers (IDF) issued no snow stoppage. Israeli government made no proclamations on the quantity of fallen snow nor was there interference by the other key promoters of the Israeli Occupation. Snow covered all the religious sites in Jerusalem.



Is this how it can really be in Palestine? Is Mother Nature telling us something?



As Palestinian and Settler boys participated in a typical snow ball fight when the falling snow [ceased], the Israeli soldiers removed and held two twelve year Palestinians as if they were criminals. Normal activity returned to that of the Israeli Occupation as settler boys pelted snow while the IDF looked on in approval.



For a brief 24 hours, things seemed real and normal.

Gaza: Israeli "End the Siege" Action at Erez Checkpoint

Reprinted from Christian Peacemaker Teams with Permission

30 January 2008

On January 26, almost 2000 people arrived at the Erez Checkpoint, Gaza, in buses, trucks and a long convoy of cars. Participants displayed enthusiasm, energy and hope through Palestinian flags, Hebrew and Arabic signs, two tons of relief food (donated by the participants) as well as 5 tons of essential foodstuffs and water distillers the organizers had purchased. Though demonstrators could not hand the commodities directly to the Gazans, the organizers promised that in the next two days this will be accomplished or they will appeal to the High Court.

Jessica Frederick and Paulette Schroeder, representing the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron and Sean O’Neill a CPTer from At-Tuwani, along with representatives from at least 26 Israeli human rights and peace activist groups who had organized the Action, traveled in this convoy.

The program included speakers: Nurit Peled Elhanan, Uri Avnery, Dr. Eya al-Sarraj who spoke of solidarity among Jews, Arabs and Christians working toward freedom for Gaza. Nurit Peled Elhanan, an Israeli peace activist whose daughter had been killed by a suicide bomber stated: The world is afraid of the Muslim womb..."Dr. Sarraj from within Gaza on his cellular phone declared with great passion: "Every drop of blood is a crime against humanity." Shir Shusdig, a young Israeli woman from the Israeli village Sderot near the Gaza border, spoke with courage: “For seven years I am suffering from the Qassams (rockets) in Kibbutz Zikum and Sderot. I know that the people on the other side are also suffering very much. That’s why I am here.”

Many journalists and peace activists from around the world recorded the news to send to their constituencies back in the States, Mexico, and Great Britain. One peace activist from Israel, 85 year old Pnira Feiler, a nurse, now serves as a volunteer with Physicians for Human Rights in clinics within the Occupied Palestinian Territories. She is quick to point out: “The Palestinians do not have access to medical services and at many of these checkpoints mothers have babies and people actually die.”

The action to “End the Siege in Gaza” ended as a shining example of Israelis, Palestinians, Christians, and Muslims working together for peace and for humanity.

As of this writing, Israeli authorities have not allowed the supplies into Gaza. Organizers of the action plan to take this issue to the Israeli High Court.

Photos and video of this action are available at: http://www.cpt.org/gallery/ENDtheSEIGE

Is there peace now?

Reprinted from Christian Peacemaker Teams with Permission

Art Gish

Hebron, West Bank

23 January, 2008

Right after the big meeting in Annapolis, Md., 27 November 2007, I returned to the Middle East for another three months of work with Christian Peacemaker Teams. I have been viewing that meeting and President Bush’s recent trip to the Middle East from the perspective of what I see happening in Israel/Palestine. So far, I have not seen one step taken by government authorities here toward peace.

On the very day the meeting took place in Annapolis, Israeli soldiers came to the village of At-Tuwani where I am living to deliver a military order to demolish the mosque in the village.

The Israeli government has announced that they will continue settlement construction and expansion in spite of international law and recent agreements. Immediately after the Annapolis talks, the Israeli government announced they would build 300 new housing units right outside Bethlehem. Even the Bush administration protested this clear violation of the Annapolis agreement. Sixteen new settlements were established in the West Bank in the two weeks before Bush’s visit.

Building of the Wall continues to isolate Palestinian communities and results in the confiscation of Palestinian land. One small section of the Wall south of Bethlehem will result in the loss of 5,000 acres of prime farmland for Bethlehem area farmers.

Israeli military killing of Palestinians has greatly increased since the Annapolis meeting. The kill ratio now is over forty Palestinians killed by Israelis for every Israeli killed by Palestinians. The situation in Gaza is horrendous, as has been well reported in the news media lately.

I continue to look for signs of peace. I have seen none coming from governments. The only signs of peace I see are the grass-roots efforts of Palestinians and Israelis to build a nonviolent movement to end the Occupation and bring Israelis and Palestinians together in peace. That excites me.

Why can't you bring us our donkey?

Reprinted from Christian Peacemaker Teams with permission

At-Tuwani Reflection:
Joy Ellison
22 January 2008

When I saw Heba* talking to the Ma'on settlement guard, I went running
towards her with my video camera poised. In at-Tuwani, extremist
Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian children walking to school,
as well as Palestinian adults working on their own land. But as I
hurried towards Heba, I realized this 7-year-old was about to teach me
a lesson in nonviolent resistance.

Her hands clasped behind her back, Heba looked up into the face of the
settlement guard. With her usual composure, she spoke to him. This
particular settler is notorious for harassing Palestinians; I've seen
adult Palestinians take off running when he approached. But he was
looking down at Heba and listening. Before I could reach where she
stood, Heba turned and calmly walked away.

"What did you say to him, Heba?" I asked. A small, shy girl, Heba
didn't reply at first. But soon my teammates coxed an answer from her.

"I asked him why he couldn't bring back our donkey."

Recently, Israeli settlers beat a Palestinian man from the village of
Tuba and stole his donkey. (See Release: Large Israeli-Palestinian
Solidarity Walk to Tuba) Palestinians living in the South Hebron hills
have had their livestock stolen before. From experience, they know
the Israeli police are unlikely to do anything to help them recover
their property or prosecute settlers who attack them. Perhaps the
entreaties of a little girl could succeed where the Israeli police fail.

About a half an hour before I watched Heba make her case to an armed
settler, Israeli soldiers drove up to where Palestinians where were
plowing. Palestinians asked CPT to film as they insisted on their
right to work their land. Neighbors came to see what was happening.
Soon they were joined by a crowd of children. Heba's mother passed
out tiny cups of Arabic coffee. As soon as the settlement guard
arrived, Heba's grandmother, the oldest woman in Tuwani, walked up to
him. She greeted him without a trace of fear and asked him where the
donkey was.

Armed with nothing but their rights as human beings, the people of
at-Tuwani stood on their land and demanded their due expertly. The
farmers convinced the soldiers to allow them to work and the
settlement guard assured Heba and her grandmother that he would do his
best to bring back the donkey. I don't have much hope that the donkey
will be returned, but I'm sure that Heba will grow up knowing how to
resist injustice. And that gives me hope for the villages of the South
Hebron Hills.

*Not her real name.

Israeli Army ... Lays Siege to Hebron Hospital

Reprinted from Christian Peacemaker Teams with permission

RELEASE

Hebron: Israeli army, in search of injured gunmen, lays siege to Hebron hospital

30 December, 2007



In a shooting incident near Hebron on the afternoon of Friday 28 December, two Palestinian gunmen and two armed off-duty Israeli soldiers were killed in a gun battle. The shooting took place in an area under Palestinian control, near the village of Beit Kahil. The two Israelis soldiers lived in Kiryat Arba, the Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Hebron. Local media outlets reported that one or two injured Palestinians escaped.

At around 7:00 p.m. that evening Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron received a telephone call informing them that the Israeli military, searching for the injured Palestinians, were occupying the al-Ahli hospital in the H1 area of Hebron – the area officially under the control of the Palestinian Authority. The caller, a senior nurse at the hospital, told CPT that the military was searching the hospital and preventing patients or visitors from entering or leaving the hospital.

When CPTers arrived in the area at around 8:00 p.m., the Israeli military prevented them from reaching the hospital. Shortly after 8:15 p.m. the CPTers witnessed a large military convoy leaving the hospital grounds. They counted at least six armoured personnel carriers and 10 military jeeps, leaving the hospital grounds.

The CPTers then made their way to the hospital. Hospital personnel told them that during the blockade the Israeli military refused entry to the hospital to a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance transporting a patient. Israeli soldiers also threatened human rights workers who tried to facilitate entry to the hospital for the patient. Hospital staff reported that no equipment had been damaged and that no-one had been injured, but that the hospitals ability to function had been severely impaired during the two hour siege. Patients and visitors reported that the Israeli military had taken their IDs and not returned them. The Israeli military did not find any wounded Palestinians at the hospital

The Birth of Jesus and the Occupation of Palestine

Reprinted from Christian Peacemaker Teams with permission

REFLECTION

At-Tuwani: The Birth of Jesus and the occupation of Palestine

25 December, 2007

by Art Gish



It was a beautiful, warm, sunny Christmas day in the mountains of Palestine in the South Hebron Hills. My Christian Peacemaker Teammate and I spent the morning with an At-Tuwani villager and his children plowing and sowing wheat with two donkeys. There were flocks of sheep on the hills around us, an ideal setting for thinking about the birth of Jesus.

We were there to protect the people from possible attacks from the occupiers, from the people with guns, from those who wield worldly power. We were standing with the shepherds, with the dispossessed, people like those to whom the angels announced good news 2,000 years ago.

We were working in a narrow valley just below the village of Sarura, which the villagers abandoned in 1999 because of repeated attacks on the village from Israeli settlers. Since Sarura originally was a Roman village, I thought of the Roman occupiers at the time of Jesus. The Roman caves are still there, as are the ruins of Roman houses. The Romans are long gone. The family we were accompanying lived in that village before settler violence forced them to leave. The father showed us the cave he used to live in and a Roman coin he found there.

What has changed since the Roman occupation of Palestine? In spite of God’s revelation in Jesus, people still rely on violence and oppression, still reject the promise of peace on earth as a gift from God. People still seek to dominate and control. The donkeys were given a break and a snack of the wheat they were helping plant. We broke bread and drank tea together and experienced a bit of God’s peace in the midst of conflict over land and resources.

Muslim Feast Day Marred by Israelli Military Restrictions

(Christian Peacemaker Teams has recently given me permission to repost some of their reports and reflections. So I will be sharing these occasionally here and cross-posted at related blogs)

HEBRON RELEASE

Muslim feast day marred by Israeli military restrictions
Thursday 20 December 2007



On Wednesday 19 December, the Israeli military obstructed the way to the Ibrahimi Mosque, in Hebron’s Old City, for over one hundred Muslim worshippers. Wednesday was the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, when Muslims around the world attend morning prayers at their local mosques.

At 6:30 a.m. CPTers Janet Benvie and Donna Hicks observed a small, but growing, crowd of people waiting to pass through the checkpoint that leads to and from the Old City, beside the Ibrahimi Mosque. The Israeli border police on duty were allowing only two or three people through the turnstile checkpoint at a time, causing the backlog.

While Hicks stayed to monitor the checkpoint, Benvie walked back through the Old City where a patrol of Israeli soldiers were stopping and searching Palestinians on their way to the mosque. The soldiers stopped and searched young men and boys, some as young as 14 years of age.

By 6:45 a.m. the streets of Hebron’s Old City were filled with families trying to make their way to the mosque. The crowd waiting to go through the checkpoint swelled at times to thirty or more people waiting at any one time, amongst them young children and elderly worshippers. Those waiting became increasingly restive and angry, but there were no incidents of violence.

CPTers Delycia Feustel and Kathie Uhler monitored the other entrance to the Old City, Bab ib Baledeyya, where the Israeli army, armed with light machine guns, were also stopping young Palestinian men and detaining them for a short time at the Beit Romano checkpoint.

Around 7:00 a.m. the Israeli border police allowed the waiting crowd to pass freely through the checkpoint, enabling people to finally make their way to prayers in the mosque. The soldiers at the Bab ib Baledeyya left the area and Palestinians were able to freely enter the Old City.

However, the delays and movement restrictions continued when the morning prayer ended. Israeli border police detained around 50 Palestinian men outside the Ibrahimi Mosque for over 20 minutes after prayers. The Israeli army prevented worshippers from returning to their parked vehicles in the area above the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee office. CPTer Lorne Friesen attempted to go the area but was stopped by an Israeli soldier who told him that there was “a suspicious object “. At around 7:45 a.m. there was a controlled explosion and the Israeli army left the area, allowing the Palestinians to make their way home.



For photos