Israeli Soldier in Hebron: “All Arab women Want to Kill Jews”
First published on the International Solidarity Movement website
For the past week I've been volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank, Palestine. My colleagues and I live in a house next to an Israeli army checkpoint in a military zone that is de facto Israeli property
under martial law. Palestinians have no rights when detained, and are daily subjected to lengthy interrogations and I.D. checks from young gun-toting Israeli soldiers.
Just up the road, about 30 metres from our house, is the Tel Rumeida colony of extremist Jewish settlers. The soldiers submit to their every word and deed, do whatever and believe whatever lies the settlers tell them about the local Palestinian people - 'they threw stones at my children', 'she is the wife of a terrorist', 'he beat up my son' - you name it, they spout all sorts of vile crap against the native people of this area.
On Sunday afternoon, August 19th, I witnessed a Palestinian woman in her early thirties from the outskirts of Hebron being detained for 1 hour before being arrested next to the illegal Jewish only colony at Tel Rumeida in the H2 district of the West Bank’s largest city. International human rights workers immediately intervened to prevent an aggressive female colonial settler from taking photographs of the detained woman. Settler children had quickly started to throw stones at her when she attempted to visit a friend in the area adjoining the illegal settlement.
Very restrictive conditions on movement for Palestinians in the heavily militarized zone of H2 prevent them from using vehicles and obliges them to go through a series time-delaying and embarrassing Israeli army checkpoints. Harrassment from soldiers, border police, police and settlers is frequent though reduced by internationals presence, monitoring and intervening to help the locals who are stopped for long periods due to so-called ’security concerns.’ So the trash is manually collected on the torturously hilly streets, men and women go everywhere by foot, the local markets have been almost completely obliterated due to military orders, settler harrassment, and a colossal downturn on tourists visiting the city since the 2nd Intifada.
One of the soldiers detaining the woman, after hassling my colleagues and I to move out of the area, commented to me that “all Arab women want to kill Jews.” When it was pointed out to him that the facts historically and presently on the ground are to the contrary, he replied, “just go away.” Members of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), sanctioned as a neutral observation force from 6 countries - Switzerland, Turkey, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Sweden - after the 1993 Oslo accords, followed the police vehicle which had detained the woman to the Givat Havi’lot police station in the Patriarch’s Hill region of the city.
Despite ISM, TIPH and Red Cross members’ attempts at attaining the woman’s name and family contact number we have not been successful due to the uncooperative attitude of the police force and army.
Hebron, a city of over 160,000 people, has 7,000 Jewish fundamentalist settlers on its outskirts, while over 500 live in the H2 district, protected by a host of army checkpoints, military vehicles and de facto paramilitary settlers armed with M-16 rifles. 3,000 Israeli soldiers are permanently based in Hebron to fulfil the Israeli State's illegal occupation duties. Hebron's Al-Ibrahimye mosque infamously suffered a brutal gun attack by American born Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein in 1994, coined 'The Cave of the Patriarch's Massacre,' when he opened fire on a crowded room of Muslims in prayer, killing 29 and injuring 150 others.
Tomorrow morning I will be outside the Ibrahimye mosque as part of my observation of checkpoints' duties for the ISM. The border police and soldiers detest anyone observing their work thwere as they cannot get away with their normal tactics of harrassing people endlessly and blamelessly if there is a video camera watching them and international observers waiting to report every wrong move they make and thing they say.
For the past week I've been volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank, Palestine. My colleagues and I live in a house next to an Israeli army checkpoint in a military zone that is de facto Israeli property
under martial law. Palestinians have no rights when detained, and are daily subjected to lengthy interrogations and I.D. checks from young gun-toting Israeli soldiers.
Just up the road, about 30 metres from our house, is the Tel Rumeida colony of extremist Jewish settlers. The soldiers submit to their every word and deed, do whatever and believe whatever lies the settlers tell them about the local Palestinian people - 'they threw stones at my children', 'she is the wife of a terrorist', 'he beat up my son' - you name it, they spout all sorts of vile crap against the native people of this area.
On Sunday afternoon, August 19th, I witnessed a Palestinian woman in her early thirties from the outskirts of Hebron being detained for 1 hour before being arrested next to the illegal Jewish only colony at Tel Rumeida in the H2 district of the West Bank’s largest city. International human rights workers immediately intervened to prevent an aggressive female colonial settler from taking photographs of the detained woman. Settler children had quickly started to throw stones at her when she attempted to visit a friend in the area adjoining the illegal settlement.
Very restrictive conditions on movement for Palestinians in the heavily militarized zone of H2 prevent them from using vehicles and obliges them to go through a series time-delaying and embarrassing Israeli army checkpoints. Harrassment from soldiers, border police, police and settlers is frequent though reduced by internationals presence, monitoring and intervening to help the locals who are stopped for long periods due to so-called ’security concerns.’ So the trash is manually collected on the torturously hilly streets, men and women go everywhere by foot, the local markets have been almost completely obliterated due to military orders, settler harrassment, and a colossal downturn on tourists visiting the city since the 2nd Intifada.
One of the soldiers detaining the woman, after hassling my colleagues and I to move out of the area, commented to me that “all Arab women want to kill Jews.” When it was pointed out to him that the facts historically and presently on the ground are to the contrary, he replied, “just go away.” Members of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), sanctioned as a neutral observation force from 6 countries - Switzerland, Turkey, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Sweden - after the 1993 Oslo accords, followed the police vehicle which had detained the woman to the Givat Havi’lot police station in the Patriarch’s Hill region of the city.
Despite ISM, TIPH and Red Cross members’ attempts at attaining the woman’s name and family contact number we have not been successful due to the uncooperative attitude of the police force and army.
Hebron, a city of over 160,000 people, has 7,000 Jewish fundamentalist settlers on its outskirts, while over 500 live in the H2 district, protected by a host of army checkpoints, military vehicles and de facto paramilitary settlers armed with M-16 rifles. 3,000 Israeli soldiers are permanently based in Hebron to fulfil the Israeli State's illegal occupation duties. Hebron's Al-Ibrahimye mosque infamously suffered a brutal gun attack by American born Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein in 1994, coined 'The Cave of the Patriarch's Massacre,' when he opened fire on a crowded room of Muslims in prayer, killing 29 and injuring 150 others.
Tomorrow morning I will be outside the Ibrahimye mosque as part of my observation of checkpoints' duties for the ISM. The border police and soldiers detest anyone observing their work thwere as they cannot get away with their normal tactics of harrassing people endlessly and blamelessly if there is a video camera watching them and international observers waiting to report every wrong move they make and thing they say.
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