Life Itself

Soldiers were swarming. The army sent two jeeps to order around two shepherds who were grazing their sheep in Humra valley, but there wasn't quite enough to keep all of those young men with guns busy. A few soliders sat in the jeeps or talked on their cell phones, but others took initiative, find ways to harass the shepherds. They took photographs, demanded IDs, ordered Palestinians not to stand on the road, made snide remarks, threated, begged, and vainly tried to heard the sheep down into the bottom of the valley.

Meanwhile, the commander argued with the landowners. "You can't graze here," they claimed. "Show us a map," asserted the shepherds and landowners. "This is our land."

"We set the rules," ordered the soldier, refusing to show them a order from the DCO.

"And we have rights," replied the Palestinians.

The stand-off continued. The army did everything in its power to order make the shepherds leave. But the sheep kept grazing, munching away on thistles and zaatar oblivious to what was happening around them. Eventually, while the landowners continued to make their case to the army, the shepherds slipped away voluntarily, the day's grazing finished. But they didn't leave their land until a tiny black and white sheep was born. Out from of its mother, the lamb came. It cried out as it took its first breaths and a shepherd glently lifted it up by the front legs and carried it away.

Life cannot actually be controlled or occupied. Resistance isn't a choice - it's life itself. The Israeli goverment, it's army, and Israeli settlers are fighting a battle they cannot win.

Ten Reasons that Havot Ma'on Outpost and Ma'on Settlement Have Got to Go;

As I said last week, I'm complying a list of ten reasons why Havot Ma'on Outpost and Ma'on Settlement should be dismantled. And since this is a urgent situation, without further ado, her's reason number two.

Reason Two: As long as Havot Ma'on and Ma'on remain, Palestinians in the village of Tuba have no usable road to their village.

Israeli settlers have built Ma'on settlement and Havot Ma'on outpost on both sides of the only road to the village of Tuba.

The Ma'on Settlement, Havot Ma'on Settlement Outpost, and road that runs between them.

This road, which you can see in the center of the photograph between the settlement and the outpost, was built by Palestinians. It is the most efficient way for residents of Tuba to travel to At-Tuwani and is the only way that vehicles can access the village. As you might imagine, this road is incredibly important to the village's quality of life.

However, since the establishment of Havot Ma'on and Ma'on, Palestinians have been unable to use this road. Settlers have threatened and beaten Palestinians who have tried to use it so frequently with such complete impunity that currently the only Palestinians able to use it are school children - and they require a Israeli army escort to do so.

Because Tuba residents have no road, when a woman is pregnant, she must decide if she will walk to the city of Yatta through the hills - where she could be beaten by settlers - well before her due date or stay in the village and give birth in her home. Because they have no road, accessing health care is difficult for everyone in the village. Because they have no road, Palestinians are unable to bring water to their village during the summer time. In other words, because the residents of Tuba are unable to access the only road to their village, they are denied their basic human rights. As long as Havot Ma'on and Ma'on remain, it's difficult to imagine this situation changing.

But don't think for a moment that Palestinians are passively accepting this situation. In August 2009, Palestinians children and their parents held a demonstration to highlight the importance of this road. Though they were harassed by the army and followed by settlers, they walked all the way to Tuba and home via this road. This photo below shows the march, one of the most moving sights I've ever been privileged to witness.

The August 2nd 2008 Children's March to Tuba walking along Tuba's only road

At the time, a friend of ours told me that march was the first time in eleven years that Palestinians had used that road.

How can you help this situation? That's not an easy question to answer. First, you can let people know about this situation. Write about it. Link to this article. Tell your government representatives and demand that they do something. Write an editoral. Tell your friends. But I also believe that they best way to support Palestinian access to Tuba's road is to support the one group of Palestians who are currently using it: the school children. I wrote about there situation only last week and they still need your support. Take some time to contact the Israeli army and pressure them escort the children properly. All of the details you need to do so are right here.

That's reason number two. Eight more on the way.

Masked Settlers Attack three Palestinian Women
13 April 2009

Note: According to the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and numerous United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law.

(Umm-Zeitouna Valley, South Hebron Hills, West Bank) On Apri l 10 at about 10 a.m., five Israeli settlers attacked three Palestinian women from the Bedouin village of Umm Al Kher, south of Yatta, while the women were grazing their sheep and gathering herbs in the nearby Umm Zeituna valley.

The women reported that the men were masked and armed with wooden sticks They beat one of the women, aged 21, injuring her arm, and chased the women and flocks off the land while throwing rocks. The injured woman needed to be hospitalized.

Later that morning in the same area, four settlers harassed shepherds from Tuba and Umm Al Kher, chasing them and their flocks off their land. The four settlers also harassed two members of Christian Peacemaker Teams, who were passing in Umm Zeituna on their way to Tuba. One of the settlers tried to seize a mobile phone from the CPTers while another stole a video camera. The CPTers reported that the four men then ran toward Ma'on settlement.

Palestinians and At-Tuwani team members made complaints to the Israeli police, providing video and photographic evidence. The police said they would start investigating on Sunday.

Settlers from nearby settlements regularly harass and attack Palestinians in the area of Umm Zeituna while the Palestinians are grazing their flocks, farming their land, or walking to the city of Yatta.

Today was another one of those days that can't be adequately described. When I arrived in Mashaha valley, I found a friend of ours absolutely beside himself. His field of wheat had been completely destroyed. Settlers grazed their sheep in the middle of his field and now it's destroyed and now his wheat crop is decimated.

The day went down hill from there. Soldiers drove up clearly intending the declare the area a closed military zone, which always a very troubling development in this area since access to land is so important and so tenuous. You can read more information about what happened in the release below, but that's not what stood out to me.

I was struck deeply by how easily the hard work of a Palestinian farmer is destroyed. In November, Palestinians plowed that field in Mashaha in an impressive act of resistance. That day, the army premited them to work and kept the settlers at bay. But a week ago, I watched as a jeep accompanied a settler has he grazed his sheep in the Mashaha and today, the soldiers confered with the settlers and allowed them to stay in the area. Moreover, they acted as though Palestinians had no right to be there whatsoever. How quickly things change.

It's hard to believe that daily acts of nonviolent resistance - that plowing fields, grazing sheep, and harvesting olives - will be enough to build a just peace against an oppresive, violent state. But what else is there to do?






AT-TUWANI: Israeli settlers destroy crops near At-Tuwani village; soldiers declare area a Closed Military Zone

[Note: According to the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and numerous United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law.]


On 18 April 2009, Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills reported that Israeli settlers had destroyed a large, privately owned Palestinian wheat field by allowing a flock of goats and sheep to graze on it. Palestinian owners discovered the destruction when they arrived to harvest the crops on the morning of 18 April. The field, located in Meshaha Valley, is the property of a family living in the nearby village of At Tuwani.

Also that morning, Israeli soldiers declared a large area of land east of At-Tuwani to be a closed military zone and forced Palestinian shepherds and their flocks to leave their land. Landowners and internationals were told they would be subject to arrest if they remained. The soldiers also ordered Palestinian landowners to advise the military every time they intend to access their own land within the zone. Israeli soldiers refused to provide Palestinian landowners with copies of the map of the military zone boundaries and would not tell them how long the closure would last. Throughout the morning, a group of at least ten Israeli settlers conferred with the soldiers.

The Palestinian owners of the land said the cultivated area destroyed was approximately forty dunum (approximately ten acres). Palestinians from At-Tuwani and nearby villages have repeatedly observed settlers from the outpost of Havot Ma’on with a flock of sheep and goats grazing on Palestinian land east of the outpost in recent months. Israeli settlers with the flock have threatened Palestinian shepherds and disrupted the grazing of Palestinian flocks on several occasions this spring, prompting Palestinians to file legal complaints against them.

The crop destruction represents a severe economic loss, as the area is experiencing an extremely dry spring and the field was one of the few near At-Tuwani that produced a spring wheat crop. Spring crops and the raising of sheep and goats are central to the economy and way of life in At-Tuwani and the surrounding small villages of the South Hebron Hills. Disruption by the Israeli military or settlers of agricultural work at this time of year represents a substantial threat to the villagers’ livelihoods.

A Quiet Day in Tuwani:

Everything here in the At-Tuwani area is calm and peaceful. It's unseasonably cold, which suits me fine, and it seems that most shepherds today are embracing the fact that it's a Friday as a reason to stay home. We're all having a bit a rest, which is welcome after the last couple of weeks of non-stop shepherding and non-stop harassment from the settlers and the army.

This morning, though, a group of settlers, one of whom was visuably armed with a large automatic rifle, road on horseback out from Havot Ma'on outpost toward Mfagraha village. Being concerned, we called someone in the village who explained to me that this had been taking place reguarly for the last few days. "It's normal," he told me.

Normal for hostile men to ride through your village, displaying their guns? Normal, when this are the same people who beat up small children on the way to school?

I am always astonished by the human cacapcity to cope.

Well, it's one of those time when this blog get quiet, just because there is so much going on that I can't keep up. Hopefully I'll have time to do some writing later. Until then, love from Tuwani.

I have to admit it. I haven't done much blogging during today (and I get all of my blogging for a ten day period done in one day. Blogger just makes you think I write more often than that). But I'm going to promise to try to do some while I'm in Tuwani. Until then, take a look at this release. It summarizes the last ten days I spent in Tuwani pretty darn well:

In three recent incidents Palestinian shepherds asserted their right to
graze their sheep on their own land, despite Israeli settlers' attempts to
intimidate the Palestinians and disrupt their agricultural work.
Palestinians in the South Hebron hills have responded to recent violence
and incursions on their lands with a law suit and a nonviolent grazing
action.

The morning of March 22, as shepherds from the village of At-Tuwani grazed
their sheep in nearby Humra valley, a settler brought his flock to the
area from the Israeli settlement outpost of Havot Ma'on. The settler
called the police and army, claiming that one of the Palestinians had
thrown a stone at him. When the police arrived, they detained the accused
Palestinian and took him to Kiryat Arba police station. Internationals
who had been present and videotaped the scene showed the police video and
pictures demonstrating that the shepherd had not thrown stones, and the
man was released. The following day the Palestinian shepherd returned to
the police station with papers proving his ownership of the valley. He
has filed a suit against the settler for trespassing.

On March 25, while Palestinian shepherds grazed their sheep on land
belonging to the village of Juwayye, twenty Israelis approached from the
settlement of Ma'on and shot at the shepherds. Despite the presence of
Israeli soldiers and the Ma'on settlement security guard at the time of
the shooting, no Israelis were arrested. Palestinian shepherds continued
to graze their sheep for two hours after the shooting, but were then
forced from the land by soldiers claiming they were too close to road 317.

On March 28 shepherds from Tuwani and other villages in the South Hebron
Hills responded to recent harassment by gathering peacefully with their
families to graze sheep in Khoruba valley near Tuwani. After they had
been in the valley for about an hour four settlers, two with their faces
covered, walked out from Havat Ma'on outpost into the flocks and among the
shepherds and their children. In response, Palestinian shepherds sat down
and refused to remove their sheep from the area. Israeli soldiers,
police, and border police arrived but did nothing to prevent the settlers
from disrupting the grazing sheep.

Palestinians in Tuwani and the surrounding villages face continued threats
of violence and intimidation from setters. With the start of the grazing
season, villagers say they expect the actions of the settlers will become
increasingly disruptive, but that the villages remain committed to
nonviolence as they confront the incursions.

It's Palm Sunday 2009 and we're celebrating Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  Here's what happened in the Tuwani area today:

 

Three children from Juwiyya, ages 10, 11, and 14 were taken by the army and taken to the road next to Ma'on settlement.  There the three children were beaten by six masked settlers, including the Ma'on settlement security guard.  The settlers told the children that they owned the land.  The children thankfully are now safe at home.  Their crime?  Grazing their sheep, well within Juwiyya village. 

 

Two of my teammates were walking through the hills, on their way home from Tuba.  Masked settlers approached them and they were forced to run for their lives away from masked settlers.

 

A young man from Juwiyya was shot at by settlers earlier this morning.  He was also grazing this sheep on his land.

 

All day long, in various ways, Palestinians nonviolently resisted settler violence and land confiscation.  They grazed their sheep, gathered herbs, played and laughed, all while facing danger calmly and persistently. 

 

I yearn for justice's triumphant entry and dare to believe that it might come soon.  But it cannot come soon enough.

Ten Reasons that Havot Ma'on Outpost and Ma'on Settlement Have Got to Go

I've been trying to figure out what to say about the last ten days in Tuwani. It's hard to summarize what's been going on over here. There's just too much to say. It's springtime which means that Palestinians are working their land more and more and the weather's pleasant, so Israeli settlers don't mind coming out to harass them. Every day it's a struggle. Grazing sheep is risky. Harvesting crops is risking. Walking home through the hills is risky. Palestinians are even attacked in their own homes.

And this is intolerable. This situation is immoral, and it's illegal too. But the law isn't really the point here. The point is a simple one. We, as human beings, all of us deserve to live in safety and security and we should have the ability to shape our future. There is only one way that Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills are going to have that freedom - Havot Ma'on and Ma'on must be dismantled.

So, over the next few days, I'm going to give you ten reasons why Ma'on and Havot Ma'on have got to go, and should have gone yesterday. In no particular order, here's your first reason:

Reason one: As long as Havot Ma'on and Ma'on remain, school children from Tuba and Mayger Al Abeed can't get to school in a safe and timely fashion.

A Palestinian child injured by Israeli settlers last year (CPT photo)

Adult settlers continue to harass, attack and beat 6-12 year old Palestinian children going to and from school in Tuwani. The Israeli army has proven, time and time again, that they are not willing to ensure the safety of these children. The army is supposed to escort these children to and from school, but for the last year, they haven't been abandoning the children for a third of the appointed escort. These leaves the children alone while they are still in danger. And the children are still being attacked in this area.

IMEMC (say that five times fast) published a great article about the way that the Israeli army has been failing to ensure the safety the school kids military escort. Read it. And I challenge you to post on your blog or send email to your friends or write to your newspaper and political reps and tell them that you know that this is happening. And that you know the only way that's it's ever going to stop if the Israeli government demolished Ma'on and Havot Ma'on.

And while you're at it, write the Israeli Army and tell them that they've got to escort these children properly. That's a band-aid, for sure, but it's a very important one.

There's reason number one. Nine more coming at you.

Deliverance and Daily Bread: Prayers in Qalandiya Checkpoint

When I stepped into the Qalandiya checkpoint, my fingers found their way to the rosary I carry in the right-hand pocket of my jeans. The last time I passed through this checkpoint, which stands between Ramallah and Jerusalem, was a two years ago when it was still being turned into the full-scale "terminal" it is today. Even at noon on a Wednesday, Qalandiya was crowded and the line was long. In the midst of this crowd of people all wanting to get through as quickly as possible, many with frustration and resigination on their faces, I felt confused and a little anxious. I needed something to hold onto, some tangible symbol of the hope that felt so far away.

Qalandiya checkpoint is a sprawling complex, but the entrance to its heart - where soldiers check IDs and bark commands through static-filled loudspeakers - is a narrow corridor not more than two feet across created by metal fencing. As I stood in in the passage way, feeling like a caged animal, I ran the beads through my fingers and began to pray.

Standing in a checkpoint designed to humilate the words of the "Our Father" finally made sense to me. In the middle of violence and injustice, there is nothing else for which to pray. Daily bread. Forgiveness. Deliverance from evil. These are all that matter.

The soldiers open the turnstile for a few minutes at a time. I passed through while the green light flashed and put my bag on a convayer belt. Next, I stepped through a metal dector. When it beeped, I took my keys and rosary out of my pocket and placed them on a tray before passing through the metal detector again. Then I pushed my passport up to the glass window between me and a young Israeli soldier. After she checked it, I turned to retrieve my bag.

I was walking toward the exit, eager to stand in the open air again when a smirking Israeli police officer demanded my passport. He checked my visa and then looked up into my face. "You look angry. Why?"

"I think this is a good reason to be angry," I replied, struggling to keep my voice even as a guestered toward the checkpoint around me. I was angry, but felt more like crying than shouting.

"So you're angry," he said. "That's fine." He grinned again and handed back my passport. With nothing left to do or say, I walked away.

The truth is, I felt ashamed of my anger. The Palestinian men, women, and children standing with me in the interminable line were nothing but calm. Who am I to be angry, a white American? Back on a crowded bus, I took a deep breath, as though I'd been holding mine all through the checkpoint.

The bus driver started off towards Jerusalem, driving along the 25 foot hight apartheid wall. Written on the wall in black spray paint were five words that caught my eye: "People are stronger than walls."

I smiled to myself, pullled my rosary out of my pocket, and started to pray again.

Interesting Article on Tuwani:

"I couldn't run. My pregnancy was too far advanced and there was nowhere to hide," said Amna Salman Rabaye, 31, as she recalled the terrifying incident several months ago.Rabaye from the Palestinian Bedouin village of At Tuwani in the southern West Bank was grazing her sheep when she was assaulted by a security guard from the adjacent illegal Israeli settlement of Ma'on.


Note, Tuwani is not a Bedouin village. It's Palestinian.

One of those days, Tuwani-Style

People often ask me what a normal day is like here. Sometimes I get cheeky and respond, "no day in Tuwani is ever normal." But let me actually answer that question. Here's what today was like in Tuwani:

In the morning I got up at 7 am and walked out to a place that we call "the gate" with a delegation from CPT. We waited for the kids from Tuba and Magyer Al Abeed to arrive with the military escort (for those of you unfimilar with the details of the situation here, school kids need to walk past an illegal settlement and illegal settlement outpost to get to school and sometimes they're beaten up by settlers and thus require an Israeli military escort to get to school). I explained what our guests were seeing: the illegal (under international law) settlement of Ma'on, the illegal (under international and Israeli law) settlement outpost of Havot Ma'on, land stolen from a close friend and collegue in Tuwani, an orchard planted by the settlers and irrigated lavishly while Palestinians are suffering through a drought, and a field successfully plowed by Palestinians last year that was stolen again by settlers this year. A depressing description to be sure.

After the kids arrived I walked our guests back to Tuwani for breakfast and then ran home to eat something myself before another group arrived. I gave them a tour, introduced them to two community organizers from the village and helped them do some shopping at the women's co-operative. While I was searching for some change, I got a phone call from a shepherd saying "There are settlers out here. Why isn't someone from CPT here?" I assured them that there were two people there already and that someone else was coming out as well. I continued looking for change. Found some. Sat down. Relaxed for twenty minutes.

My teammate Sarah called one of the community organizers in the village so he could come down to our house and begin giving a second presenation, time time to the CPT delegation staying in the village (the group I spoke to at the gate this morning). While they were talking, school ended and the kids started to gather to go home. I hurried up to the gate again, called the army to ask them to come, and spend some time with the kids. The army came - mericifully quickly for a change. Kids left for home. I watched them until they were out of sight and then turned around to come home.

I climbed the hill up to a neighbors house to join the CPT delegation for a lovely lunch prepared for them by the women's co-op. Took a deep breath. Relaxed. When my cell phone started ringing, I pulled it out of my pocket and answered.

I learned from my teammates that the children encourntered settlers on their home from school, after they were out of my sight. Settlers had been grazing sheep near the path the kids take home from school. Even after my teammates had called the army asking them to accompany the children past the settlers, the army abandoned the kids leaving them to walk about a 1/3 of the designate military escort by themselves. The children had to take a detour and hurry home to avoid the settlers. My heart sank.

When I hung up my phone, another teammate told me she had a update about a situation that began unfolding yesterday when a young man from Tuwani, someone I was drinking tea with just the day before, was grazing his sheep in Khourba valley. Settlers arrived and called the army, claiming this young man had thrown stones at them. My teammates were present with video cameras and knew this wasn't true, but the young man was taken to Kiryta Araba police station any way. My teammates and a lawyer followed him. They were all premited to leave yesterday but asked to come back again today. As I was finishing my lunch, another teammate told me that the young man had been released and was back in the village. Everything was okay. It was nice to have good news.

I helped a few CPT delegated prepare for spending the night in smaller villages in the area and then walked home and collapsed on to our couch (it's a couple of mats, but is always the couch I apperciate most). Checked my email and decided to update this blog.

Tomorrow will be another full, not-normal normal day here. We'll help the kids get too and from school and I'll probably spend some time out with shepherds. But for rest of the night, I plan to rest until something rouses me.

And that's one day in the life of a Tuwani CPTer.

Israeli soldiers join settlers in chasing Palestinian shepherds off their lands instead of arriving on time for school escort.

On May 15th, I was accompanying a shepherd who has worked very hard and risked much to resist the confiscation of his land. My teammate and I joined him as he grazed his sheep on a piece of land that settlers have had their eye on for some time. Meanwhile, our other teammates were calling the Israeli army trying to convinced, beg, cajole, or browbeat the Israeli army into escorting the kids from Tuba home from school. Then low and behold, the jeep appeared on the hillside above us. The soldiers talked to two settlers - the same people who had been harassing shepherds all day long. Instead of taking the kids home from school, the soldiers forced the shepherd I was accompanying down into the valley. It was madding. Here's the release that we sent out.

[Note: According to the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and numerous United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law. The At-Tuwani team comprises both CPTers and members of the Italian peace organization, Operation Dove.]

Israeli soldiers in charge of escorting the children from At-Tuwani to their homes in the villages of Tuba and Maghayir al Abeed arrived at the meeting point thirty minutes late on 15 March 2009, leaving the children waiting in cold, rainy weather. When At-Tuwani team members with the children called for the escort, the army dispatcher said the escort would come thirty minutes late and offered no further explanation.

At-Tuwani team members accompanying local shepherds in the area witnessed two settlers in a white pickup coming onto Palestinian land and chasing away shepherds at about 12.50 p.m. Ten minutes later, an army jeep drove into the same area, and two soldiers joined the settlers in preventing shepherds from accessing their land. The soldiers left the area at about 1:25 p.m. and drove to the escort meeting point.

Further departing from protocol, the jeep drove off into Ma’on settlement while two soldiers escorted the children on foot. The jeep rejoined the escort ten minutes later when it was almost over.

After five years of implementation, the Israeli military escort still has problems performing its legal duty. The escort sometimes is late, forcing the children wait alone in cold weather or unsafe locations. In addition, the army vehicles and soldiers on foot consistently stop and turn before the end of the route, which leaves the children to walk alone on a path where settlers have attacked them. During the 2007-2008 academic year, settlers attacked the children fourteen times, as documented in the report “A Dangerous Journey: Settler violence against Palestinian schoolchildren under Israeli military escort” [http://www.cpt.org/files/Palestine-School-Accompaniment-Report-2006-2008-Dangerous-Journey.pdf].

Well, when I arrived in At-Tuwani, it started right a way. I set down my bag and started to admire the improvements that my teammates made to our house while I was away and then the phone rang. While the 19 Palestinians standing with them were detained for 45 minutes, two teammates of mine were arrested as they video tapped a bulldozer expanding an illegal settlement. Funny, getting arrested for recording someone else breaking the law. Thankfully, they were released the next day. Here's the story:


8 March 2009
AT-TUWANI: Israeli police detain Palestinian landowners asserting their rights, arrest two members of Christian Peacemaker Team members

At 11:30 a.m., 8 March, Israeli police detained nineteen Palestinians who were trying to access their land near the village of Um al-Kheir. The police also arrested two Christian Peacemaker Teams members (CPTers) and charged them with obstruction and trespass, even though the owners had invited them to their land.

Palestinians from the village observed workers using road building equipment on Palestinian-owned land near the Israeli settlement of Karmel which is adjacent to Um al-Kheir. When the Palestinians and CPTers approached the work area, an Israeli settlement security guard began demanding they leave. When they remained on the land, he contacted the Israeli army and police. At 12:00 p.m., Israeli police detained the Palestinians for forty-five minutes at the scene. They arrested the CPTers and transported them to Kiryat Arba Police Station outside Hebron, where they charged them with trespassing and obstructing the building work. The CPTers were at least ten meters away from the construction vehicles and were simply standing with the Palestinian landowners.

Neither the army nor police asked the Palestinians for papers to ascertain the true ownership of the land.


Here's the follow up:

9 March 2009
AT-TUWANI RELEASE: Israeli court releases CPTers arrested for accompanying Palestinian landowners


At 2:30 pm, on Monday, 9 March, a Jerusalem court released two Christian Peacemaker Teams members (CPTers) whom Israeli police arrested while the CPTers accompanied nineteen Palestinians trying to access their land near the Bedouin village of Um al-Kheir. The CPTers were charged with trespass and obstruction of construction work, despite the fact that they were at least ten meters away from the work zone and the Palestinian landowners had invited them to their lands.

Israeli police arrested the CPTers on Sunday, 8 March, at 11:30 a.m., when Palestinian landowners from Um al-Kheir asserted their right to visit their land. The villagers observed workers using road-building equipment on Palestinian-owned land near the adjacent Israeli settlement of Karmel. When the Palestinians and CPTers approached the work area, an Israeli settlement security guard began to shout, demanding that they leave. When they remained on their land, the guard contacted the Israeli army and police. At 12:00 p.m., Israeli police detained the Palestinians at the scene for forty-five minutes. They arrested the CPTers and transported them to Kiryat Arba Police Station outside Hebron. Neither the army nor police asked the Palestinians for papers to ascertain the true ownership of the land. Um al-Kheir villagers report that the work they observed is expanding Karmel settlement and stealing their land and livelihood.