AT-TUWANI – On Monday morning, 22 February 2010, four Israeli settlers
chased Palestinian school children who were walking home after school in
At-Tuwani village. For one hour they awaited the Israeli military escort
assigned to ensure their safe passage to their home villages of Tuba and
Maghaer Al-Abeed. Because the Israeli military failed to arrive, the
children were forced to take a circuitous path home taking over an hour.
They finally arrived in Tuba and Mughaer Al-Abeed three hours after the
end of the school day.
After the Israeli military refused to respond to members of Christian
Peacemaker Teams’ repeated phone calls for over half an hour, Israeli
settlers approached on a farm tractor. Two men, one masked, drove down to
the children’s regular waiting point on the dirt road that bisects the
Ma’on settlement and the Havat Ma’on settlement outpost. Using the
tractor, they tried to form a barricade by pushing boulders onto the road
surface.
Normally, the road is in daily use by the children and their escort,
because it connects their home villages with At-Tuwani and Palestinian
cities to the north. However, three times in the previous three school
days, the Israeli soldiers had failed to perform their assigned escort.
The two settlers returned to their outpost. After waiting for an hour for
the military to arrive, the children decided to return home by a longer
path around the settlements. As they walked, four settlers came out from
Havat Ma’on and chased them. As the children ran from the settlers,
Israeli military jeeps appeared ahead of them, but stopped while soldiers
spoke with the four settlers.
Soldiers detained the children for approximately one hour and refused to
provide safe passage around the settlement. The children detoured yet
again, taking a circuitous path home through dangerously rugged terrain.
They finally arrived in Tuba and Mughaer Al-Abeed three hours after
school.
The school children of these villages require the military escort because
of Israeli settlers’ repeated attacks and harassment, year after year.
Whenever the soldiers fail to meet them promptly before and after school,
the children wait in dangerous areas under “de facto” settler control.
For a thorough report on the school escort in 2007 and 2008, including
maps, photos and interviews with the children, please see “A Dangerous
Journey” at www.cpt.org/files/Dangerous-Journey-Summary-2008.pdf.
For more information contact:
Christian Peacemaker Teams 054 253 1323
Operation Dove 054 992 5773
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