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Note from PSP

We bring this story to our website not to condone or condemn the actions of the Palestinian who lightly wounded 2 Israeli settlers, or what he “deserved” but to point out the total lack of control or will to control the settler population by the Israeli military. The Palestinian population of the West Bank has no other recourse but the Israeli military involving incidents with Israeli settlers, though time and again the Israeli military has demonstrated and stated explicitely their inability to control the Israeli population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. While the Israeli soldiers not only will not be punished, but in fact will be lauded for shooting the Palestinian man involved, they stand by and watch as Israeli “civilians” run over him with their car. The disparity between treatment of Palestinians involved in a crime and Israelis involved in a crime in the same geographical area under the law only represents one thing: Apartheid.

[Note: According to the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of
Justice in the Hague, and numerous United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal.
Settlement outposts are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]

In the early evening of Friday, 3 July, Israeli police detained a
Palestinian from the village of Tuba, located in the South Hebron hills.
Mohammed* was on his way to Yatta for a doctor’s appointment. He stopped to speak with his brother, who, accompanied by internationals, was grazing the family flock on private Palestinian land beside the nearby village of At-Tuwani.

At 5:00 pm three Israeli settlers accompanied by an Israeli police officer approached the brothers. The police officer asked whose flock it was and Mohammed went forward to speak with him. A few minutes later a police jeep arrived. One police officer told an international that the settlers had informed them that the Palestinians were ‘on Israeli land’.

Mohammed explained to the police officer that the land on which his
brother was grazing the sheep was owned by Palestinians, but the police officer ignored him. The police officer then threatened to arrest an international videotaping the incident if she continued to film.

The police spent considerable time consulting with settlers and at 6:30 pm took the Palestinian shepherd to Kiryat Arba police station.

Note: On the 25th of June, Israeli police arrested two
Palestinians from Tuba while grazing their sheep. Israeli police,
accompanied by Israeli settlers arrested Ahmed Omar Jundyye, age 15, and Redwan Ibrahim Jundyye, age 16. The Palestinian boys were held at Kiryat Arba police station for nearly five hours.

*Name has been changed

10 February 2008

HEBRON–Palestinian residents of the Beqa’a Valley are in danger of losing eleven homes and their health clinic. The clinic is currently under construction. The Israeli Civil Administration issued orders to the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) to demolish the homes and clinic by 14 February.

Residents in the valley have been building this clinic without governmental or outside funding, even though many have little or no paid employment. The Israeli Civil Administration refused to grant a building permit despite the difficulties residents encounter in reaching other health facilities outside of the valley. Between 600 and 700 people, mostly women and children, will use the new clinic for routine medical care, including prenatal checkups and vaccinations. Palestinian Relief and CARE International currently provide these services one day a week in other existing facilities. The residents decided to build their own clinic as the facilities they are now using are inadequate. Some patients are currently receiving care in part of one resident’s home.

(To view pictures of Beqa’a Valley residents using an existing home as a clinic, visit http://www.cpt.org/gallery/album233. )

Eleven other buildings also have demolition orders. Six of these are homes that the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) rebuilt after previous demolitions.

Atta Jaber, a resident of the Beqa’a Valley, told CPTer Jessica Frederick (member of Christian Peacemaker Teams), “We want the world to know that with our new clinic that has the demolition order, if there was an automobile accident on the Bypass Route 60, and Israelis were injured and could not get to a hospital, we would give them medical treatment right here in this Palestinian clinic. Tell the world.” Israeli authorities demolished Jaber’s home in the Beqa’a Valley three times.