Holy Land: Israeli soldiers wreck family home, stone observers, shut down Old City for midnight settler tour

While the eyes of the world have been on Gaza, elsewhere in the Occupied Territories Israeli solders and settlers have been adding to the normal hardships people who live in and around the area of Hebron’s Old City, Christian Peacemaker teams report. 

On 1 August, the Israeli military occupied the rooftop of the al-Rajabi family house in Jebal Johar near the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba at about 6pm. According to witnesses, the Israeli soldiers left the rooftop at around 7pm and fired five tear gas grenades into the home, setting the interior into flames. The result was a total loss of the family’s personal items. Seven Palestinians live in the home. Five children, four boys and a girl are now homeless.

Late at night on Saturday 2, August, Israeli soldiers stationed at a checkpoint threw stones at the Palestinian Municipal Inspectors' office and family’s home in the Old City of Hebron. According to the observers present at the station, the soldiers were throwing stones and empty bottles for several hours.

While a CPT affiliate was present at the municipal office where the incident occurred, the Israeli army searched the premises, assembled the observers in the street, and detained two of them for allegedly throwing stones at the Israeli checkpoint nearby, contrary to the observation of the CPTer present in the station.

The soldiers took the observers to a nearby military base. One of them returned within 20 minutes to the police station with visible cuts on his wrists from handcuffs and lost consciousness for unknown reasons shortly after. The man did not fully recover and had to be taken to the hospital by an ambulance.

Shortly after midnight on 4-5 August, roughly 15 soldiers accompanied a tour group of approximately 25 to 30 Jewish tourists/settlers through the Old City of Hebron, detaining Palestinians on the street and stopping families in their vehicles as they tried to reach their homes. The tour lasted over an hour, starting at the Israeli military gate at Bab Bab al-Baladiya and ending at the Israeli settlement of Avraham Avinu.

Source: CPT