USAID ON SHUHADA STREET, 1997: A TIMELINE OF EVENTS
Reports by Christian Peacemaker Teams, Hebron


Interview: ISRAELIS HARASS US A.I.D. WORKERS, INCREASE COSTS OF SHUHADA STREET PROJECT
by Kathy Kamphoefner
July 16, 1997

"The settlers from Beit Hadassah object to opening this street to Palestinians," said Mohandes David. "This used to be the main street of Hebron. It has been closed for five years, due to massacres at Shuhada Circle and at the Ibrahimi Mosque." In ninth hour negotiations over the Hebron Protocol, the US agreed to redo the street. The street's residents are 25% Jewish and 75% Palestinian, David said.

"The purpose of the project is to open the street for Palestinians," David said. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) mans four different checkpoints along the route. The project includes all of Shuhada Street from the east, beginning at a checkpoint in front of the Hasbahe Market to the Israeli settlement of Beit Hadassah, through Duboyya Street and up the hill of Rahmy Street towards the Israeli settlement of Tel Romeida. The project is funded with US tax dollars.

"When we worked in front of Beit Hadassah, we had to work at a very high rate. The settlers held demonstrations every day." They came up to the workers with machine guns and threatened us. The Israeli soldiers allow them to carry guns. They are here to protect the settlers only. They never prevent them from doing things."

"They shot out the windows on three different loaders with pellet guns. For the workers, it seems like the glass explodes in their face, and they think they're next. We have a very high turnover in workers on the project," David said. "We called the [Israeli] police, and they took reports of these incidents. They said they questioned the settlers, but no one knew anything." David also said settlers have often kicked the workers and spit on them. Last week a settler pushed one of the workers into an open trench and later assaulted David (see release of July 14).

Recently a security officer from the US Consulate spent the week with the project. "When he was riding in the dump truck, the settlers smashed out the window with rocks," David said.

"I have learned to use `preventive security', when we want to work in front of the settlements. We have to have the Israeli police come. The police are very interested in stopping settler harassment, because it can start the clashes," David said. "Also I carry the video camera and a still camera all the time, to document what happens. When settlers come up and harass the workers, I tape them. I write all these events in my reports to the State Department."

"We continue working during the clashes, as long as it doesn't spill into our work area. We have to finish this project by the end of July. We have finished sandblasting all the doors and walls and windows to get rid of the offensive graffiti," David said. The shop doors frequently are painted with Stars of David and slogans such as, "Death to the Arabs," "Hebron is a Jewish City," and "Arabs Get Out of Hebron." The primer coat is finished on all the doors, but these slogans reappeared immediately, even written across the project's sign. The sign lies just behind the soldiers' watchtower.

Another setback occurred earlier this Spring. "We had just completed digging a 100 foot trench for the new sewers up Rahmy Street. The Israeli Army decided that the trench might be a security risk during Land Day demonstrations. They brought in their `Midnight Bulldozer" and filled in the entire trench. Then when they backed up and turned the bulldozer around, they knocked over the retaining wall on the other side of the street. We had to rebuild the sewers and the wall, and we lost a couple of days. This cost the project another $20,000," David said.

Another factor complicating the work has been that the width of one lane had to always be kept open for the IDF jeeps. On narrow Duboyya Street, this meant that "we had to dig closer to the buildings, and dig down four meters to maintain the slope. This required smaller excavators than normal. So this also took a bit longer, " David said.

"We've been here 4 1/2 months," David explained. "We have to finish the road by the end of this month. We have finished everything we needed to do undergrounds, so now we are installing lampposts. We'll begin putting in the curbstones in the next three days and then the shoulders. Then we'll finished the sidewalks and pave the whole street."

After the road is completed, an Israeli contractor will build a security wall down its center as stipulated in the Hebron Protocol.

August 30, 1997

Asphalting started today on the US-AID financed renovation of Shuhada/Duboyya Street in Hebron. The street connects the vegetable market and Jewish settlements in the Israeli-controlled H1 sector to the rest of the city. "M", the chief project engineer, expects that Dennis Ross and Madeleine Albright will come to see the completed sections during the coming weeks, and that the full project will be completed by the new deadline of September 30.

The scheduled completion date had been July 15, but the recent closures and continued harassment by settlers and soldiers--meticulously documented by M's team--have slowed them down, at U.S. taxpayer's expense. Bethlehem was closed until yesterday afternoon, following the bombing of the Machane Yehuda market 30 July. During that time, the local contractor, who is based in Bethlehem, had difficulty obtaining special IDs for workers and special registrations for vehicles to transport workers and supplies out of Bethlehem and into Hebron.

Harassment from Israeli settlers and soldiers has been constant. "I've been to the police station eight times to file complaints," says M. Yesterday morning, he had to go to the police in order to retrieve about 100 sidewalk paving bricks stolen by soldiers from the nearby military camp. Earlier in the week, an Israeli soldier beat one of M's workers. The military has denied the beating incident and, according to M, has kept the soldier involved out of sight to prevent the beaten man from identifying him.

Five times, windows of heavy machinery have been smashed when settlers shot at them using compressed-air pellet guns. A sixth time the loader had no window and the driver, shot in the head, suffered a serious concussion.

After months of provocation, M, a Texan, has decided to hold off asphalting in front of the settlements until the end of the project. He says he will complete the portion in front of the settlements only on condition that his workers get Israeli police protection. The police, unlike the soldiers, are empowered to restrain settlers. If even then the settlers "give us sh--," he says, "we'll walk off on them."

Tuesday, September 2, 1997

At about 8 AM settlers threw chunks of concrete from the roof of Beit Hadassah down at one of the Palestinian engineers working on Shuhada street. Other workers on the road said that the soldiers and police present did nothing to find the perpetrator but maintained a presence on the street afterwards.

Local settler Anat Cohen demanded that the police arrest one of the workers who had a small Palestinian flag sticking out of his pocket. The police told him to put the flag inside his pocket and he refused.

An hour or so later, settlers shot out the window of a bulldozer with a pellet gun. When the Palestinian driver kicked broken glass from the window in the direction of an Israeli police officer he was arrested. David Muirhead, the American engineer in charge of the U.S. AID funded road renovation, attempted to intervene and was himself arrested by the Israeli police.

"I was arrested for holding up the police in arresting the driver,'' Muirhead later told an Associated Press reporter.

Kathy Reilly of the U.S. Consulate in E. Jerusalem phoned members of the team and asked them to talk with workers on Shuhada street, which runs near the CPT apartment, to get an idea of what had happened shortly after Muirhead's arrest.

HEBRON: US-AID ROAD PROJECT FACES DELAYS
Sept. 3, 1997
by Pierre Gingerich

(This morning the Chicago Tribune reports the arrest of the American project manager of a USAID sponsored road building project located just outside the apartment of CPT Hebron workers. The project is designed to reopen the street to Palestinian traffic for the first time in three years. The American manager was arrested while he attempted to defend Palestinian employees who were attacked by settlers under the protection of the Israeli Defense Force.)



SETTLERS STONE ARABS, AMERICAN IS HELD
Chicago Tribune; Sep 3, 1997; pg. 3

Jewish settlers threw stones Tuesday at Palestinian workers on a U.S.-funded road project in Hebron. The American project manager and two Palestinian employees were arrested for refusing to cooperate with Israeli police.
The United States is paying $1 million to renovate Shuhada Street, a major thoroughfare that passes in front of two settler enclaves; the project is supposed to lead to the street's reopening to Palestinian traffic for the first time in more than three years.
David Muirhead, the American project manager, said the settlers threw stones and fired pellets from a compressed-air gun, smashing the window of a bulldozer.

CPT Hebron
September 15, 1997

Today, Monday at 8 A.M., every type of soldier and police arrived to protect the long-delayed work on the section of Shuhada Street in front of Beit Schneerson settlement. First plainclothes Israeli security personnel occupied rooftops and carried "ammunition" off the settlement roof: cartons and sacks of rock, chunks of cement, bottles. Then workers removed blocks torn up from a new sidewalk the previous night when the light and awning of the Palestinian house beside it were also smashed. Finally, before work could begin police had to cart off cars the settlers had refused to move.

The whole scene was surreal: engineers, laborers, soldiers, civil police, military police, anti-terror police, intelligence agents, TIPH observers, U.S. AID officials, numerous reporters filming, and settlers arguing with police or just watching, while Palestinians walked through the confusion to reach the adjacent school or the market (another checkpoint).

The IDF threatens to bring out tanks and troops to stop the paving. The paving is finally completed by September 30. (9/97)

By Tom Malthaner
October 7 1997
This morning as I was walking down Shuhada Street in Hebron, I saw graffiti marking the newly painted storefronts and awnings. Although three months past schedule and 100 percent over budget, the renovation of Shuhada Street was finally completed this week. The project manager said the reason for the delay and cost overruns was the sabotage of the project by the Israeli settlers of the Beit Hadassah settlement complex in Hebron. They broke the street lights, stoned project workers, shot out the windows of bulldozers and other heavy equipment with pellet guns, broke paving stones before they were laid and now have defaced again the homes and shops of Palestinians with graffiti. The settlers did not want Shuhada St. opened to Palestinian traffic as was agreed to under Oslo 2. This renovation project is paid for by USAID funds and it makes me angry that my tax dollars have paid for improvements that have been destroyed by the settlers.

A technician in the water department of Hebron, reports to CPT that water lines installed for Palestinian shops and school during the U.S. AID project rebuilding Shuhada St. have been cut ten times in the five weeks since the project was completed. CPTers have observed water spouting from cut lines near their apartment (11/97)