Children blocked from returning home after collecting food from soup kitchen

The Christian Peacemaker Teams are on the ground, daily, in the Old City of Hebron. They are observers and photograph and document violations and tensions in the Old City and Hebron Governorate. Read this story to see how the border police are continuously harassing the residents of the Old City, including impeding their ability to move freely:

Because of the dire economic situation in the Old City in Hebron every day children go to the Ibrahimi Mosque soup-kitchen to get food. Walking out through the mosque checkpoint shortly after noon on Sunday 26 May, I was surprised by the number of people standing at the other end of the checkpoint.

Upon passing out through the checkpoint I realized that the turnstile to enter the mosque area was closed and nobody was being allowed through. A dozen young boys held plastic tubs of soup they had collected at the soup kitchen. They told us they had been waiting for around half an hour. Read more here

 

 

Harrowing video shows Israeli soldiers arresting Hebron children

This article, published in the Electronic Intifada, highlights the increased phenomena of arresting very young children in Hebron. According to the rights group Defence for Children International – Palestine Section, 236 Palestinian children were in Israeli detention in February of this year, 39 of them aged 15 or younger:

Two videos of Israeli soldiers arresting three young boys in Hebron give a harrowing glimpse into the everyday violence faced by children in the occupied West Bank city where settlers have taken over Palestinian homes under the protection of the army. (Videos embedded above and below.)

The videos, published by the group Youth Against Settlements, show a chaotic scene of settlers confronting Israeli soldiers, Palestinian residents and international observers at Shuhada Street on Sunday. The heavily-armed Israeli soldiers drag away three young boys while Palestinians and an international activist attempt to intervene. One of the boys wails with fright as he is pulled away. A woman who identifies herself as the mother of one of the children defiantly goes into the Israeli army jeep and manages to remove one of the boys from it. Read more here