At-Tuwani Update

Here is an excerpt from the monthly update sent out by the full-time team in Palestine. To read the details, go to http://cpt.org/node/7567.

January 2009
Summary:
In and around at-Tuwani, the Israeli military remarkably intensified its daily interceptions of Palestinian migrant laborers trying to leave the West Bank, sometimes applying lethal force. (For background, see http://cpt.org/cptnet/2009/02/12/tuwani-soldiers-kill-palestinian-migrant-worker-increase-harassment-villagers-sout) The army also continued failing to reliably accompany the schoolchildren on the complete route to and from school, leaving them vulnerable to settler attacks. Palestinian shepherds continued challenging Israeli military prohibitions against their grazing of flocks on their own land.

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A note about the military escort of children (also taken from CPTnet):

The Israeli army has escorted these Palestinian children to and from school since September 2004 following a series of Israeli settler attacks upon them and their international accompaniers. This obligation was endorsed by the Israeli Knesset Committee on the Rights of the Child in November 2004.These attacks have been a problem for years, and the implementation of an Israeli military escort has not solved it. In the 2007-08 academic year, settlers attacked the children a total of fourteen times, as documented in the report A Dangerous Journey: Settler Violence against Palestinian schoolchildren under Israeli Military Escort [http://cpt.org/files/Palestine-School-Accompaniment-Report-2006-2008-Dangerous-Journey.pdf]