Armed Israeli settler attempts to prevent children from...

Armed Israeli settler attempts to prevent children from attending school

By Cal Carpenter

6 January 2005

AT-TUWANI IN SOUTH HEBRON HILLS - On 2 January in the morning, an armed
Israeli settler attempted to prevent children from the village of Tuba from
attending school in At-Tuwani. This happened while children from Tuba were
making their way from their village to the point where they normally meet
with an Israeli military escort. The military escort takes them to school
each day to protect them from settler violence.



On this morning, however, an armed settler stood in their path and
threatened them. The children yelled to the soldiers who were to be their
escort and then ran back towards their village. Members of Christian
Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and Operation Dove (OD), who are based in At-Tuwani,
were monitoring the children's progress on a hill top across the valley.
They ran down to meet the children. The internationals were joined by the
father and older brother of some of the children, and the whole group began
again to walk to the military jeep that would escort the children to school.



At the top of the last hill before the place where the jeep was waiting, the
adults stopped because they (and the internationals) have been forbidden by
the Israeli army to be on the path the children take. As the children walked
through the valley, the settler threatened them again and they began to run
back to the adults. At this point the adults came down a little way into the
valley, and three of the soldiers from the escort got out of their jeep and
began walking toward the children. The children's father encouraged the
children to go to the soldiers.



While the soldiers escorted the children along the path, other settlers,
standing among the trees near the Havot Ma'on outpost, shouted at them and
threatened them. Three settlers with a dog also followed the internationals
and adults part of the way back to Tuba shouting threats.



This incident is the second time armed Israeli settlers have menaced the
school children of Tuba since Israeli military escorts began in September
2004.

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Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical initiative to support violence
reduction efforts around the world. To learn more about CPT's peacemaking
work, please visit our website at: http://www.cpt.org.
Photos of our projects may be viewed at: http://www.cpt.org/gallery