Saturday, October 19 ~ Brenda Mehos

“It’s easier to build strong children then to repair broken men”- Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and Statesman

“Children are one third of our population and all of our future”- Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health. 1981.

Our third morning was tough. We visited Hebron, known to be a flashpoint spot for violence because of its unique situation of having an illegal Israeli settlement right in the heart of the city. It’s reported that there are 33,000 Palestinians living in Hebron, about 900 settlers, and 1500-2000 Israeli soldiers there to protect them. It’s a flashpoint because of the displacement (illegal by international law) of Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the middle of Old Hebron City and because it contains at its heart the Tomb of the Patriarchs, one of the holiest sites for both Jews and Muslims. Palestinian movement here is harshly restricted by multiple checkpoints throughout the city and we experienced two of them as we visited the mosque and walked the souk (market place).

At the end of our morning we ate lunch and talked with two Christian Peacemaker Team members (CPT). CPT Palestine was invited to Hebron to be a presence in 1995, just after the signing of Oslo II when the Hebron Municipality issued an invitation to monitor and document human rights violations of Palestinians. In Hebron CPT provides ongoing presence at checkpoints where school children are at risk. It’s also present in the vicinity of the Ibrahimi Mosque during Friday prayer to monitor and document human rights abuses and is available for emergencies such as home raids, school raids, housing demolitions, arrests, and detainments.
One statement by a team member is hard to get out of my head and it is this. “The military does use force on children.” Equally disturbing was the statement that here a Palestinian will be tried as an adult if they are age 12 or over by the military court. Child arrests are up from 5 in 2017 to 19 in 2018. Settler violence has been on the rise since the beginning of 2018 with an average of six attacks per week. (2019 is still being compiled.)

All I can think about is what it would be like for my kindergartener to have to walk through checkpoints to go to kindergarten? What would it be like for our family to fear that soldiers could come in anytime during the night and arrest one of my family members? What does this type of continuous stress do to a child and what kind of person will they become?

I am thankful for young people who want to do this type of work. You can check out the organization’s website at www.cptpalestine.com.