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).