Community Update and Thanks

Night in Tuba
September 30, 2007
Eileen Hanson

Last night I spent the night in the small village of Tuba. It is one of the several villages in the South Hebron Hills for which Tuwani serves as a kind of hub.

Tuba should be just a 10 minute walk from Tuwani. But that route is no longer available. In 1980, the settlement of Ma’on was established between Tuba and Tuwani. Now, in order to get from Tuba to Tuwani it is at least a one hour hike. It’s two hours over several hills and valleys if you take the safest route. The one hour path is somewhat dangerous as you are within sight of the settlement outpost for part of the walk. Palestinians have often been attacked when using this route. Most now take the much long route.

These detours from Tuba to Tuwani are over very hilly rocky terrain. I enjoy hiking and I found it a pretty good workout. When I think that this is the path that the elementary school aged children had to take each morning and evening from school, I can’t even imagine it.*

We arrived just in time to break the Ramadan fast in the evening. Like almost everywhere I have experienced in Palestine, we received the warmest hospitality. Although we and other internationals are likeliest to go to Tuba if there have been problems with the settlers, the family was insistent that we are always welcome.

It was enlightening to visit Tuba. For one, I saw the settlement of Ma’on, and the settlement outpost Havat Ma’on, literally from a different angle. From Tuba, you can see Ma’on and the neighboring settlement of Karmil expanding toward the village. New houses and building going up. More fields taken over by settlers. The perimeter of the settlement of Ma’on now nearly meets the egde of Karmil, to the north, squeezing the village of Tuba from both sides.

From Tuba, land confiscation does not seem like an abstract problem. Nearly all the village land to the north and west, has been taken over by the settlers. What settlers have not built on, they control by means of threats and harassment. Palestinians can no longer use the land to graze the sheep. Most families now have to buy feed to supplement the limited grazing for their flocks.

Settlers have recently set up an outpost tent on a nearby hill, expanding their control of the land. New outpost buildings are not allowed under Israeli law. A few weeks ago, the Israeli military actually came to enforce this and demolished the tent. However, they also took that same bulldozer to a nearby Palestinian village and demolished a home there. Settlers have already begun rebuilding the outpost tent.

History shows that if settlers are persistent, they can establish illegal outposts, and eventually maintain a presence on stolen land. Most of the settlements in the West Bank began this way. A small group of settlers come to land and begin building. Often the Israeli government has ruled the building illegal, and ordered the settlers to leave. Rarely have the injunctions been enforced with any vigor.

* Since 2004, children from Tuba now have an Israeli Army escort each day so they can take the short path, through the middle of the settlements, to school in Tuwani. The military escort was ordered by the Israeli parliament (Knesset) after the children had been attacked on several occasions. In one attack, CPTer’s accompanying the children were seriously injured by armed, masked settlers. Following this high profile incident, the Children’s Committee of the Knesset order the Israeli military to escort the children each day. CPT, and Operation Dove, or Italian partners in Tuwani, now monitor this army escort day.
For more information on Tuwani’s history, click here.

RELEASE: Settlers enter village in the South Hebron Hills, assault Palestinians
September, 24, 2007

On September 23rd, shortly before sundown, ten Israeli settlers entered the village of Tuba in the South Hebron Hills. The settlers threw stones, hitting a woman and her adult son. Settlers remained in the village for about an hour. Israeli partners called police at 5:30pm to report the incident. Police did not arrive in Tuba until 7:30pm after the settlers had already left.

Tuba, a village of about 75 people, has experienced on-going harassment by settlers from the nearby Israeli settlement of Ma'on, and illegal outpost Havat Ma'on. School aged children from Tuba are accompanied to school in nearby At-Tuwani by an Israeli military escort because of repeated attacks on the children by settlers. In April of this year, three girls were injured when settlers attacked the children on their way home from school and stole two of the children's book bags. Two weeks ago, the Israeli military demolished an outpost tent the settlers had built illegally on Tuba land.