Hebron : A Snakepit of Hate and Israeli War Crimes?

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Monday November 23, 2009 23:05

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

"Spitting and hissing at all who met their paranoid displeasure"

Following the temporary withdrawal of the International Solidarity Movement from Hebron due to that organisations difficulty in finding a suitable base there, a number of internationals from the village of Bil'in journeyed down there last week to take up the slack with night patrols, checkpoint monitoring and especially the safeguarding of Palestinian children to and from school from stone throwing, spitting Israeli "settler children and adults. Four in number, we found accomodation in the homes of the Al-Awawi and Egnabi families,previously fire bombed by the colonising "settlers" and illegally evicted but both families still overflowing with the milk of human kindness despite their travails.

One room of Nedal Fareed Al-Awawi's home was gutted by a petrol bomb, and the house's electricity and water connections destroyed in December of last year by colonists from the adjacent illegal Israeli outpost of Avraham Avinu who assaulted him when he was installing a new water tank on the roof of his home, destroying it with gunfire - all in benign view of Israeli police who made no arrests but opined: "'I saw that settler attack on you, you should file a complaint. Be careful of settlers tonight." (related link).

On 19-3-2008, Israeli Occupation Forces and "settlers" violently evicted the Egnabe family from their home in Hebron Old City, tossing out the furniture, arresting the father, , and B'Tselem field worker Issa Amro, who was filming the crime, welding the metal door shut and declaring their upper story home an Orwellian "closed military zone." .thus forcing the six member family to live in another room of their building for three months before .Muhammad commendably forced the issue by breaking the seals and reoccuping his home.

We witnessed endless harrassment and humiliation of Palestinians at the military checkpoints and during the course of our patrols especially the teenagers, intervening where posibleand resulting in the near arrest of Eric from Scotland and Kyle from the US and a soldier swinging a punch at me after he failed to grab my video camera. The nadir of our human rights mission there occurred last Saturday when some 150 "settlers" shepherded by heavily armed IOF soldiers and rooftop snipers did their Garvaghy Road power trip through the Old City overty intimidatory, menacing and triumphalist, spitting and hissing at all who met their paranoid displeasure - in my case with a: "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you" before being spat at with the accuracy of a spitting black cobra and the intervening supportive approval of his fellow travellers (see video: Hebron, City of Fear & Spitting Hate).

Caption: Video Id: Quj9ehmPQ1A Type: Youtube Video
Hebron : City of Fear & Spitting Hate

Caption: Video Id: BsFJ6FBY2Eo Type: Youtube Video
Israeli military evicts Palestinian family in Hebron

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Comments (4 of 4)

New York Mets are hosting a fundraiser for the Herbron colonists

by Danny K.

Wed Nov 25, 2009 14:06

The New York Mets baseball team are hosting a fundraiser for the "nonprofit" Hebron Fund at Citi Field in support of the Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

... The business of the Hebron settlers is terrorism, pure and simple; not quasi-terrorism, crypto-terrorism, neo-terrorism, potential terrorism, or something akin to terrorism, but the very thing itself. And the business of the Hebron Fund is funding terrorism. This does not mean that all, or even most, donors knowingly support these actions; many may be innocent victims misled by the fund's innocuous marketing materials. Although the fund's staff and Board member attempt to maintain a cloak of respectability, they are another matter entirely.

This year's Hebron Fund dinner will "honor" Hebron settler and spokesman Noam Arnon (whose picture is featured with other "Hebron Fund and Hebron Community Leaders" on the Hebron Fund website). In 1990, Arnon told Israel Radio that three Jewish militants, convicted of car-bombings that killed three Palestinians and maimed two Palestinian mayors, were "heroes" who sacrificed themselves "for the security of Jews." In 1995, Arnon was further quoted by the Associated Press when he called Baruch Goldstein, another settler who slaughtered 29 Palestinians at prayer in Hebron and injured more than 100 others, an "extraordinary person" denied "historical justice."

The 2008 Hebron Fund dinner honored Board member Myrna Zisman, who accepted her award on behalf of Yifat Alkoby, an "extraordinary woman" who received international attention in 2006 when she was videotaped repeatedly calling a Palestinian woman and her daughters whores and telling them to stay in their "cage," as the family sought refuge in their own home, with bars on the windows to protect them from recurring settler attacks. ...

Full EI report on link.

Hebron's architecture of occupation

by Sandra

Tue Nov 24, 2009 16:13

Excellent background info in this article.

Video : Irish Groups Visit to Bil'in

by TD - FPC

Tue Nov 24, 2009 00:14

The indefatigable Elaine D. facilitated through the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign organises cultural and facting trips to the West Bank, This video records their visit to Bil'in where they were appraised of the parlous situation there by two members of the Peoples Committee; Emad and Iyad Burnat and of the situation in Ni'lin by Hassan Musa and Mohammad Amira, leading lights of the Ni'lin Peoples Committee.

Caption: Video Id: 2261 Type: Politube
An Account of Bil

Last Friday's Protest in Ni'lin Against the Apartheid Wall

Mon Nov 23, 2009 23:56

Breaking our humanitarian mission to Hebron to participate in Ni'lin's protest against the Apartheid Wall, three of the Bil'in based internationals joined by a Hebron based activist, Cliette from France, journeyed there. Not as well known as the Bil'in Friday protests against the Wall or given heed to by the international press and internationals, the Israelis consequently suppress the peaceful nonviolent demonstrations with unbridled violence resulting in seven murders so far mostly through live fire - one an eighteen month baby through tear gas inhalation. After prayers in an olive grove the marchers peacefully marched to the Wall only to be smashed and dispersed by the Israeli iron fist of live fire (two youths were hit) and the copious use of tear gas, then followed by a long drawn out David and Goliath struggle with the shabab ritualistically and uselessly sling shotting and throwing stones at the well protected IOF who responded ferociously but sometimes languidly, with the bored arrogance and sure knowledge that it was akin to shooting fish in a barrel.