Sunday 30 September 2007

Settlers attack the Abu Eisha family in Tel Rumeida, Hebron

In the center of the city of Hebron lies the "Tel Rumeida" neighborhood. In 1986, a new settlement was established at the heart of the neighborhood. The settlers of Tel Rumieda, who known as particularly extreme, live on one side of a dead-end street... The Abu Eisha family lives on the other side.



Commentary on recent video showing Hebron settler woman harassing Abu Aisha family
CPT, Wednesday January 24 2007

B'Tselem - Testimony of Taysir Abu 'Ayesha, January 2007
Daily attacks by settlers on the Abu 'Ayesha family, Tel Rumeida, Hebron

Yifat Alkobi leads colonist trespass on Tel Rumeida Hill
ISM Hebron, February 19th 2007
Today at 4 pm human rights workers (HRWs) decided to pass by local resident Issa Amro’s house on Tel Rumeida hill. In the past week colonists had occupied this Palestinian property several times.

When the HRWs arrived at the house, they noticed a group of colonists, 2 men, 5 women and 15 children, had entered the house and garden again. It was only yesterday that they were sent away by the police. The colonists took pictures of the HRWs and one of the women, Yifat Alkobi, videotaped them. Yifat Alkobi is notorious from the “Sharmouta video”.

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International observers to open new office in Hebron's old city
Ma'an News, 17 / 09 / 2007
The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) is opening another office in the old city of Hebron this week. The organization says the new office on Salah Al-Din Street, just next to the municipal square, will serve Palestinians in the Old City to reach TIPH more easily.

Head of Mission Karl-Henrik Sjursen says the new office demonstrates TIPH's commitment to Hebron's people to observe and report on the abuses committed by Israeli settlers and military forces.

Hebron's old city has been mainly abandoned by its former Palestinian residents due to settler violence. A tiny minority of residents continue to live there despite the ongoing harassment from the militant settler compounds nearby.

Created in the Oslo peace agreement, TIPH is a civilian observer mission in the West Bank city of Hebron. According to the group, TIPH "reports on breaches of regional agreements on Hebron and human rights law to the Israeli and Palestinian parties both on a local level and on a national level."

Diplomatic representatives of all the six member countries of TIPH - Norway, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Turkey and Switzerland – will be present at an opening ceremony for the new office on the 18th of September.

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"CPT: Dealing with threats on your life"
Nigel Parry, Hebron Diary, 23 January 1998
My e-mail in-box was busy this last week, with reports and updates from the violence reduction presence of the red-capped Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in Hebron, all relating to recent death threats against three of their members.

I've read CPT reports for some time now, and both these and the CPT archives represent an oasis of information coming out of a desert of silence. In Hebron we had endured both the "we work with the authorities and cannot comment" silence of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the "Our reports are passed on to committees [somewhere]" silence of the mostly Norweigen Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH). TIPH unfortunately means "spit" in Arabic, and silence - which is what ultimately results from no-publish human rights mandates - is what keeps the violators happy and makes you want to make the same sound as the name.

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