[Peace-discuss] Fw: [Aware] Article for Distribution from Palestine: "Life in TelRumeida"

[Randall Cotton]

Here is an on-the-ground report received at our aware at anti-war.net
address, from the Tel Rumeida Project, the new enterprise started in
August by Chelli Stanley, a 23-year old American woman, along with
other intrepid international activists. This project is an ambitious,
compelling Palestinian advocacy program in the Tel Rumeida
neighborhood of Hebron, occupied West Bank. Tel Rumeida is described
as ruled under direct Israeli occupation and particularly victimized
by extremist Israeli settler violence.

Also, I found a short profile of Chelli written late last year:
http://www.rochesterdandc.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041115/NEWS01/411150311/-1/ARCHIVE5

R

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tel Rumeida Project" <telrumeidaproject at yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 9:58 AM
Subject: [Aware] Article for Distribution from Palestine: "Life in
TelRumeida"


:
: Chelli Stanley
:
:
: Tel Rumeida Project
:
:
: www.telrumeidaproject.org
:
: LIFE IN TEL RUMEIDA
:
: Though each area of Palestine can be said to be unique, Tel Rumeida
is truly a world unto itself.  Located in the Israeli-controlled area
of Hebron, Tel Rumeida is a small neighborhood living out the brutal
extravagance of direct Israeli occupation.  If Tel Rumeida is viewed
as a microcosm of the Israeli plan for Palestine, the sometimes subtle
realities of Palestinian life under occupation and the type of
Palestinian state Israel desires can be more easily comprehended.
:
: Nearly every tactic used by Israel to create its merciless
occupation is employed in Tel Rumeida: displacement, imprisonment,
economic strangulation, extreme militarization, arbitrary detention,
land confiscation, disruption of normal Palestinian life, settler
violence, soldier brutality, government complicity with illegal
settler acts, and daily humiliation.
:
: The Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida never experience the living
of a normal day. The nearly three years of curfew they endured during
this intifada permanently scar the lives of every resident and the
community itself. The five soldier stations and recently modernized
electronic checkpoint currently located on three streets make it
nearly impossible for residents to walk anywhere unhindered. The two
settlements, Beit Haddasseh and the Tel Rumeida settlement, housing
some of the West Bank's most extreme settlers (including members of
Kach, designated by Israel as a terrorist organization,) and located
at the top and bottom of the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, ensure that
Palestinians living here will, at the very least, have a daily
reminder that they are no longer welcome in their own neighborhood.
The endless abandoned homes and forcibly-closed stores, many of them
sprayed with violently racist settler graffiti, do their own part in
contributing to the solemnly eerie atmosphere of
:  the neighborhood.
:
: The living conditions in Tel Rumeida are that of apartheid.
Palestinians are not allowed to drive their vehicles on the streets;
they are for Israelis only. Palestinian residents must carry or cart
everything to their homes while settlers take joyrides through the
neighborhood. Palestinians are forced to take winding, dangerous,
secondary paths to reach their houses while Israeli settlers use the
primary paths. Though the Palestinian residents do not participate in
the violence which is so unceasingly apparent in the neighborhood, it
is they who are stopped by the Israeli soldiers and forced to lift
their shirts and open their purses.  Though it is mainly the settler
children, immune by law from prosecution, who terrorize Palestinian
children and adults and who attack soldiers, it is the Palestinian
children who are constantly stopped, who have their schoolbags
searched, who are yelled at and hit by soldiers.   It is Palestinians
who must wait in lines to enter the electronic
:  checkpoint every time they enter or leave their community. It is
Palestinians who are harassed and humiliated by nearly every
conceivable variety of Israeli law enforcement official as are in
existence.
:
: Israeli settlers rule Tel Rumeida. Young settler boys saunter
through the Tel Rumeida streets stoning or attacking homes and
Palestinian residents at will under the indifferent eyes of Israeli
soldiers and police. Damaged and destroyed Palestinian homes, gardens,
water pipes, phone lines, and windows live as a testament to the wrath
of the settlers' former deeds. The absolute impunity with which these
settlers operate, combined with their overt camaraderie with the
Israeli soldiers and policemen, are nothing less than a palpable
message to the Palestinian residents of the neighborhood that their
safety is not an Israeli concern.
:
: Nearly every Palestinian resident of Tel Rumeida has a disturbingly
devastating story, such as that of a young pregnant mother who has had
two miscarriages in as many years as a direct result of Israeli
violence. Last year, she was two months pregnant and, after Israeli
soldiers came inside her home and fired their weapons, was found lying
on the floor of her home, bleeding, and later lost her child. This
year, only a month ago, pregnant with twins and home alone, her house
was attacked by seven armed settlers screaming death threats. Soldiers
stationed less than 30 meters from her home did not respond to her
calls for help during the 20 minute attack. Two hours later, lying
again on the floor of her home, she lost her first twin. Later in a
hospital operation, she lost the second. Since the death of her twins,
she has suffered from nervous attacks and has been repeatedly
hospitalized for collapsing.
:
: The children of Tel Rumeida, though they are many, almost never play
outside. Those who do venture out run off the streets at the first
sound of an approaching settler vehicle and run into their homes when
groups of settlers walk by. Even the youngest child of Tel Rumeida has
learned indelible lessons about the type of people their Israeli
settler neighbors are and their own place in the neighborhood, acting
out these lessons on a daily basis.
:
: Tel Rumeida is one of the few areas in Palestine living under direct
Israeli occupation. The outcome of this occupation is a brutalized
Palestinian community, economically devastated and imprisoned, living
under the endless violence of their Israeli neighbors. Tel Rumeida is
the Israeli occupation writ large.
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
: www.telrumeidaproject.org


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