Monday, November 20, 2006

"We killed Jesus, we'll kill you too"


A 19-year old Swedish human rights worker had her cheekbone broken by an Israeli settler in Hebron today. Tove Johansson from Stockholm walked through the Tel Rumeida checkpoint with a small group of human rights workers to accompany Palestinian schoolchildren to their homes. They were confronted by about 100 settlers in small groups, who started chanting in Hebrew "We killed Jesus, we'll kill you too!", a refrain the settlers had been repeating to internationals in Tel Rumeida all day.

After about thirty seconds of waiting, a small group of very aggressive settler men surrounded the international volunteers and began spitting at them, so much so that the internationals described it like "rain." Then settler men from the back of the crowd began jumping up and spitting, while others kicked the volunteers from the back of the crowd and from the side.

The soldiers who were standing just a few feet behind the internationals at the checkpoint just looked on as the internationals were being attacked.
One settler then hit Tove on the left side of her face with an empty bottle, breaking it on her face and leaving her with a broken cheekbone. She immediately fell to the ground and the group of settlers who were watching began to clap, cheer, and chant.

Earlier in the day at least 5 Palestinians, including a 3-year old child, were injured by settlers, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The IDF, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the settlers.

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