Six Youth Shot in Beit Ommar

On Friday morning, I went on a tour of Tel Rumeida, a neighborhood in Hebron where the Israeli settlers are notoriously violent. Local activists took us around, showing us things such as closed markets that had been destroyed by settlers and then literally welded shut by the Israeli government, who deemed them "unsafe" and refused to allow people to repair their ruined businesses. One major street through Tel Rumeida, Shuhada Street, has been closed to Palestinians for the past six years. Recently, the army said that the six year long closure had been a clerical "mistake." However, the street is still not open. Here are some pictures of the neighborhood, with captions telling what each one is.


Yesterday morning after prayers, residents of Beit Ommar (the town I'm living in) held a non-violent demonstration against the Israeli construction work that is threatening the structure of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. There were similar demonstrations across the West Bank in what has become a growing movement protesting Israeli excavation of the holy site. I had been out visiting the city of Hebron and missed the first 3 hours of the conflict. When I arrived, at least three Humvees and four jeeps had entered the village and were attacking the demonstrators. The army uses young people throwing stones at fully armored vehicles (the stones literally bounce off) as an excuse to attack them. For most of the shooting I witnessed though, soldiers were using the scopes on their weapons to shoot long range. The youth weren't even in view, making even the weak excuse of stone-throwing non-existent. For six hours, the army shot large amounts of teargas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and live ammunition. They stopped Palestinians in their cars in the street and used the cars, with Palestinians trapped inside, as shields while shooting. Six children between the ages of 9 and 16 were shot with live ammunition, including one straight through the thigh and another in the head. As of last night, both of them were in critical condition, and there was no report as to the status of the other four. One of the Palestinian men I am staying with was shot in the leg with a rubber-coated bullet from close range while helping Eyad Sabarneh, age 12, the child who had been shot through the thigh. Dozens of other people were also injured by rubber-coated steel bullets. The video includes footage of Eyad being shot.





I'm finding it hard to describe all this in anything other than clinical terms. I don't know how to make the extent of it real to people who aren't here. Here all of this is normal, as I was told by one man last night when he asked why I looked unhappy. "This is nothing." By night the village was quiet and today most people – though I'm sure not those whose children had been shot – got up and worked as always. As the soldiers were attacking there was nothing I could do to stop it. The best I could do was film what was happening and hope that the presence of my white skin and American accent near the soldiers somewhat mitigated their violence, and that my telling the story encourages others people to work to stop what Israel is doing.

Some days here in Beit Ommar are surprisingly calm. You don't see soldiers or settlers. You don't hear gunshots or smell teargas. There's always some small reminder of the occupation though. The other day, while walking around town with a Palestinian friend, he pointed out to me tire tracks running through a field. The tracks had been made by an Israeli army jeep, and their shortcut had destroyed someone's trees.