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Curfew in Hebron
From: Bullet Points (used w/permission)
'Hello' and 'wats yourr name?' came our way in the usual fashion. We seemed to be going upstream through the hoards of uniformed Palestinian children of all sizes who were coming or going to school (there are 2 shifts in a day - too many pupils for too few teachers and buildings.) Every shop was shut, every window protected with iron bars.
In defiance of curfew, teachers and children persist in going to school which means negotiating checkpoints. An Israeli police van suddenly drove round the corner. The kids mostly scarpered - but there was an opposite movement of a few boys (c. 12-14 yrs) running furiously towards it to hurl stones. We were in the van's way, so there was no shooting and it headed back the way it came. It is a game of terror.
Up another hill towards the old city, we came to a checkpoint. A black Israeli female solider was preventing a group of school girls from going through to reach their homes. It was 11.30am. Bits of Arabic and Hebrew flew everywhere. She was getting touchy as the girls tried to argue their way through and a few tried to get round the checkpoint - to their homes just round the corner. But the two soldiers on duty just had orders that, 'No Palestinians are allowed through". 'Why?' we asked. ' These are my orders." She couldn't give us a reason.
The Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) with whom we are spending this week, have had a presence in Hebron for the last 7 years. They are here to reduce violence and as such constantly find themselves mediating between the settlers, the Palestinians, the IDF and police. Two of us stayed at the checkpoint to see what would happen. The girls only let me take their picture when I explained that people in my country didn't know how bad the situation was here. Then they were eager for me to photograph them. After half an hour a boy appeared and was let through. When I asked why him and not the girls, the female soldier said 'his grandfather is sick' and then added in an undertone, 'and I know him'. Compassion seems random. Ten minutes later the 'order' changed and all could go through. Fortunate, as it had just begun to rain.
Hebron is a ghost town. Silent market places. Closed doors. Eery. A tiny boy - about 2 years - ran out of an alley way, with great excitement at seeing us pass by. His brothers had to pull him away. Up near the hospital, away from the centre, more people ventured out. I asked 3 elegantly dressed women 'aren't you afraid?' 'Afraid of what?' they said. 'We are only afraid of God.' An old man in traditional Arab headdress told us 'We don't know what the Jews want'.
Curfew means a whole population indoors. People are in a prison here. It doesn't seem a good idea to lock a whole town up on the pretext of security. Curfews are breeding a terrible insecurity. A few boys approached us, eager to talk. 'This is the third day of curfew this week.' 'What do you do all day, watch TV?' I asked. '(scornful noise). TV? Computers? Internet? All day long?' A police van suddenly roared up the street. The boys disappeared but a glass smashed accurately infront of the van as it passed. Even if peace were to come tomorrow, how many years would it take to 'de-programme' these young people?
At the border between H1 and H2 (the area where 400 Jewish settlers live), 17 Palestinian men were being held by two soldiers. Their coloured identity passes were stacked on a concrete block, and the soldiers were apparently phoning through their identities, to see if any were 'wanted.' Some had been taken drinking tea at 8 am in the street. Two more were on their way to hospital. One man had a medicine bottle for his sick boy.
Erez (pictured) is 19 years old. He was polite unlike his colleague. Red hats mean paratroopers. He would leave Hebron after another month, and admitted it was a difficult place. One man was approached them signalling that he was desperate for the toilet. He looked in pain. A man in a suit asked me to ask the soldier to let him go round the wall to pee. They did. But how embarrassing, and culturally alien, for a foreign woman, free to talk to all and walk through the checkpoint, to see these men being humiliated and incapacitated. Two had been caged off behind barbed wire. We asked for reasons but none were given. It was not until 2pm - 6 hours later - that all the men were released. No reason was given for their detention. They had long missed prayer time at the mosque.
Evening
It is horrible being so misunderstood. We have just been pelted with stones and rubbish all the way down the long hill into Hebron. Even though we greeted the people and spoke Arabic, groups of small boys persisted in teasing, taunting and throwing stones at us. I got really whacked in the back. A bag of rubbish was also thrown and caught me and Bob on the head. This was the manifestation of their frustration at being locked up for 4 days. We could go where they couldn't. It didn't matter who we were: our crime was being foreign.
To make it worse, thousands of Jewish settlers are arriving in buses for a special Jewish festival: the reading of the story of Abraham in the Abraham 'synagogue'. I highlight the word as it was originally a 4th century church built by Constantine, over the cave where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives are buried. A few 100 years later it became a mosque. After the massacre in 1994, of 29 Palestinian Muslims by the Jewish settler, Goldstein who sprayed the worshippers with bullets, the town was put under curfew for 40 days, and part of the mosque made into a synagogue. Tonight, the settlers have the city to themselves. The streets are clear and there is not 'an Arab' in sight.
(As I write this morning, the school pupils have just been teargassed by Israeli soldiers. they are attempting to break the defiance of the Palestinians to keep schools open inspite of the curfew).
QPSW (Quaker Peace and Social Witness)
Israel & Palestinian Territories
If anyone would like to reproduce any part of this report verbatim, please contact Floresca Karanasou, on +44 (0) 20 7663 1073 or florescak@quaker.org.uk
