Feature story
One accompanier who was working in Jordan Valley left in tears, saying: "We made great friendships here and the people need us.”
In addition to Jordan Valley, the group also operated in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and South Hebron Hills.
During the short placement, the accompaniers filed 450 incident reports, out of which approximately 295 were referred for followup and immediate assistance by the International Committee of the Red Cross as well as Israeli, Palestinian, international, and United Nations organizations.
While violence documented by the previous group of accompaniers amounted to 59 percent of the violations in three months, violence documented by the most recent group amounted to 65 percent of the violations in two months.
In just one example of an incident, in Bethlehem, on 6 June, 40 Israeli soldiers and six army jeeps entered the village of Tuqua and proceeded to five homes. In one of the homes, a man was forced to lay on the floor and his parents had to step on him. The soldiers broke a man’s foot, while two other men had their arm broken, and another man had his shoulder injured. One woman, who had given birth recently through cesarian section, was also injured.
In Jerusalem, on 23 May, Muslim worshipers were denied access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque/Haram Al-Sharif Sanctuary. Al-Ghazali Plaza was filled with security officers who aggressively pushed young men, in an arbitrary fashion, and without checking ID cards.
In the Jordan Valley, on 29 May, a settler was grazing his cattle on privately-owned Palestinian land in Bardala. When the farmer approached and asked him to leave, the settler threatened the farmer with a handgun and an iron bar. Other settlers arrived, one of them armed with a machine gun, and one with an iron bar, while a female settler filmed the incident. The settlers drove their cattle on a melon field and destroyed it.
In South Hebron Hills, on 28 May, three settlers attacked the village of Susiya at approximately 10:00 am. They smashed two windows and threw tear gas into the house, damaged the water well, and attacked a woman with sticks, hitting her on the neck and right arm. It took the family 20-30 minutes before they could call an ambulance for the woman.
Those working and living in the communities expressed how much the accompaniers mean to their daily lives.
"I have no words to explain how valuable your support is,” said an officer from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on 13 May.
“Thank you for coming here, because in this situation we are like in a prison; we can’t go out and we can’t go shepherding.” said a Palestinian farmer from Kisan on 4 June.
