Internet access has been sporadic and slow this past week. I will attempt to upload clips of interviews later. Below are reports I wrote with my friend Astrid tonight, regarding attacks on us by settlers.

5th May 2007
Tel Rumeida Hebron Region

At approximately 3PM this afternoon two Human Rights Workers (HRW) were walking through the Tel Rumeida olive grove. They noticed settler movement inside the house and on the property of Issa X which is currently a closed military zone and access forbidden to both its Palestinian owners and Israeli settlers.

They sat approx 50 feet away under the trees to document the illegal trespassing. Three settler boys, aged around 10, moved up to the HRWs. Yelling at them to ‘turn off their camera’ (which was off), ‘go home’, ‘get out of here’ shouting ‘Nazi’ and threatened physical violence. The soldier posted in the house came down into the grove and intervened. Telling the HRWs “they are just children, I’m sorry”, and “you can video here if you want, you can do whatever you want.” The children returned to the far side of the house (away from the HRWs) and the HRWs moved back a further 50 feet to avoid provoking further attacks, but maintain a presence in the grove.

Five minutes later the same three settler boys, accompanied by a further 2 two pre teen boys and two adults (aged early twenties) advanced towards the HRWs. The boy in the front was carrying a length of thick plastic pipe, approximately 4 feet. They continued the same verbal threats whilst surrounding the HRWs – and lifting the pipe into a ‘strike position’. Some of the other boys picked up sticks and prodded the HRWs as the boy with the pipe hit and pushed at one HRW as the other shouted for the soldier to intervene.

The verbal threats and physical violence was increasing when the soldier arrived and attempted to deescalate the settler attack. At this point the women of the Abu Talal family moved onto their stairway overlooking the grove to film the attack. When the settler boys noticed their filming they became instantly hostile with one of the boys running at them and throwing stones, causing them to take shelter. The rest of the boys yelled taunts and made obscene gestures.

During the entire attack the adult settlers had stood aside laughing – it was only at this point, when the HRWs requested the presence of police to the soldier that they then ushered the young boys away. No further action was taken by the HRWs or the soldier.

Some footage of the latter part of the attack was captured, primarily the stone throwing towards the Palestinian woman filming.

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At approximately 5pm this evening 3 HRWs went to aid 2 other Internationals who were being attacked on the stairway and path overlooking the Beit Hadassah settlement. They were alerted to the incident taking place by shouting and yelling and the sudden movement of soldiers and police running up the stairs.

As they approached they saw from the bottom of the stairs a group of 20 young settler boys ranging in age from 8-15 surrounding the 2 Internationals, and soldiers and border police attempting to intervene as the boys physically and verbally attacked them.

The 3 HRWs filmed from the bottom in an attempt to capture evidence of the settlers assault on Internationals.

A large group of adult settlers then rushed the 3 HRWs. Pushing and grabbing at their cameras and shoving them up the street away from the incident. As they shoved the HRWs away they shouted “go home” “this is your fault” “we’re not the terrorists” “you’re ugly from the inside and out”. The adults were joined by a group of young teen boys (from the earlier attack on HRWs in the olive grove) who used a large sheet of cardboard to block the video cameras recording the assault, and joined in yelling abuse and threats at the three female HRWs.

Soldiers attempted to intervene and were shoved away by both adults and children before more soldiers and police managed to move the settlers away from the HRWS who had still managed to capture a large amount of the verbal abuse on camera.

No further action was taken by these three HRWs.