At-Home with Gila Svirsky

Jerusalem
28 March 2001
Subject: URGENT ACTION: Stop Planned Strike Against Hebron

Friends,

Help us prevent an anticipated military strike against Hebron by the Israeli army!

We strongly condemn the shooting of a 10-month-old Israeli child by a Palestinian gunman in Hebron (see details below), but Israel must not be allowed to retaliate, especially in a disproportionate way, against the general civilian population of Hebron.

Israeli leaders are talking of “ending our restraint.” The Defense Minister threatened that “Israel’s reaction will come and be severe,” and the army asked that the Palestinian Authority be declared an “enemy” to legitimize any warlike actions against it. We are expecting an action soon – there is open talk of invading abu-Sneina, the Palestinian neighborhood from where the shots were fired that killed the child, demolishing homes, and leveling public buildings. We hope we can stave this off with an international campaign. E-mails and faxes are an important part of this.

We ask you to please write any or all of the following:

President Bush:	president@whitehouse.gov
Vice-president Cheney:	Vice.President@whitehouse.gov
Sec’y of State Powell:	secretary@state.gov or Fax (202) 736-4461
Prime Minister Sharon:	pm@pmo.gov.il or Fax: (+972-2) 566-4838
Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer:	sar@mod.gov.il or Fax: 972-3-697-6990

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights webadmin.hchr@unog.ch or Fax: +(41-22) 917-9016

European Union Missions at the UN:
<austria@un.int>, <belgium@un.int>, <denmark@un.int>, <finland@un.int>, <france@un.int>, <germany@un.int>, <greece@un.int>, <ireland@un.int>, <italy@un.int>, <luxembourg@un.int>, <netherlands@un.int>, <portugal@un.int>, <spain@un.int>, <sweden@un.int>, <uk@un.int>

Thanks for your help,

The Coalition of Women for a Just Peace <gsvirsky@netvision.net.il>
The Israel Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) <icahd@zahav.net.il>
Rabbis for Human Rights <info@rhr.israel.net>

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CPTnet March 27, 2001
Hebron: Baby Killed; Army and Settlers Retaliate
by Diane Roe, a member the Christian Peacemakers Team in Hebron

CPT strongly condemns the shooting of a ten-month-old Israeli baby by a Palestinian gunman. The child, Shalhevet Pass, was killed in her father’s arms by a gunman who fired from the Palestinian neighbourhood of Abu Sneineh into the Avraham Avinu settler enclave at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. The Avraham Avinu enclave is a fortified military post from which the Israeli military been firing into the Abu Sneineh neighborhood during the past six months of the intifada.

After the murder of the child, CPT members watched from their rooftop as the IDF retaliated by bombarding houses in Abu Sneineh with shells and machine gunfire. The heavy shelling continued until 6p.m. During that time, armed settlers also ransacked the Palestinian market next to Avrahim Avinu after shop keepers closed up and curfew was imposed. At about 9:30 in the evening settlers then attempted to enter the Palestinian-controlled Abu Sneineh area, but the Israeli soldiers and police contained them.

“I think it is horrible that someone would shoot at a child,” said Nisreen Abu Mayaleh, a friend of the team who lives in the Abu Sneineh neighborhood. At 5 AM this morning Abu Mayaleh called CPT to inform them that settlers had indeed made it into the neighbourhood, and were approaching her house. Rick Polhamus then observed from the team’s roof settlers returning from Abu Sneineh and firing back into it. More recently today a trusted Israeli source told the team that Sharon has given the army permission to demolish homes in Abu Sneineh.

It is with deep sadness that we note that the infant Shavalhet spent more than half of her ten months in a war zone. We wish she could have grown up in peace to meet Rami, a child from the neighborhood of Hart iSheik whose bedroom was bombed last November when he was ten months old. We pray for an end to all killing. We deplore the punishment that the Israeli settlers and Israeli military have imposed on a whole neighbourhood, due to one gunman’s actions. We join in asking for a UN-sponsored International Protection Force (unarmed) to save both Israeli and Palestinian children.