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Army and settlers abuse cave residents in attempt to expel them | |||||||||||||||
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Cave residents in the southern Hebron hills. Photo: B'Tselem |
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High Court delays construction of wall north of Jerusalem | |||||||||||||||
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A section of the separation wall north of Jerusalem. Photo: Reuters |
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Hebron Settlers attack child and injure person who tries to help him | |||||||||||||||
On 22 June 2005, Muhammad a-Sharif, a ten-year-old child who lives in Hebron, was selling sweets on the street to earn some money for his family. Muhammad told B'Tselem what happened: "…two boys from the al-Madhun family bought sweets from me. At the same moment, a group of five or six settlers started to harass me. They came near me, shouted at me and tried to attack me… Just then, a man who looked about thirty years old came from the direction of a-Sahala Street. He walked towards Abed Checkpoint, and I wasn't more than fifteen meters away from it. He was wearing work clothes. When I was by the stairs of the 'Abd al-Mahdi Qafisha family's house, that man grabbed me by the shoulder and told me not to be afraid. He continued to walk alongside me to shield me from the settlers. Suddenly, the settlers rushed towards the man and violently attacked him. A settler in an orange shirt hit him hard on the chest and knocked him down. The man fell on his back. It appeared that he had hit his head on the asphalt, because he wasn't moving." At that moment, the child ran home. Malaka Qafisha, an eyewitness, told B'Tselem: "The settler in the orange shirt hit him hard on the chest. The man fell on his back, started to shake, and then stopped moving. I screamed and said that he was dead. My mother-in-law ran over to me and saw the man lying on the ground. At the same moment, another man, in his fifties I think, told me to bring water quickly. I went into the house, filled a bottle with water and brought it to the man. He splashed the water on the man lying on the ground." The man beaten by the settlers was Fares al-Batesh, a resident of the city. Soldiers arrived at the scene within a few minutes, gave him first-aid, and evacuated him to Soroka Hospital, in Beersheva. Al-Batesh was released within an hour and taken to a checkpoint far from Hebron. In his testimony to B'Tselem, he said: "I told the policeman that I didn't have any money to take a taxi. He replied in Arabic, 'That is none of my business.' The patrol van turned around and they left." Al-Batesh started to walk toward Hebron, suffering from pains to his head. A few hours passed before a driver stopped and took him to where he could find a taxi to Hebron. Al-Batesh later went to 'Alyah Hospital, in Hebron, where the doctors examined him and found that he had suffered a fractured skull. |
"The man fell on his back, started to shake, and then stopped moving. I screamed and said that he was dead" Malika Qafisha |
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Amendment denying compensation to Palestinians | |||||||||||||||
The Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee is now discussing a proposed amendment to the Civil Wrongs Law that will exempt Israel from compensating Palestinians who are injured by Israeli security forces. This amendment has already passed a first reading in the Knesset plenum. If it is approved by the Committee it returns to the plenum for the second and third votes necessary to enact it into law. Now is the time to ensure that the bill does not pass. Write to the Committee chairperson, MK Micha'el Eitan, by fax at 972-2-6496404 or by E-mail at meitan@knesset.gov.il, requesting him to prevent Committee approval of the proposed bill. |
Write to the Chair of the Knesset Law Committee, MK Micha'el Eitan, urging him to prevent passage of the amendment denying compensation to victims of rights violations. |
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