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Pennie Quinton, IMEMC
At 1.00 in the morning on the 30th of April, the Israeli Army raids
orphanage in Hebron, home to 110 girls, seizing all equipment from
community sewing workshop. The Hebron Orphanage for girls is run by the Charitable Islamic
Society,(I.C.S) and houses 110 children. The ICS is accused by Israel of funding the Hamas movement under the
table, and in recent years, the ICS has been raided several times by
the Israeli Army who seized computers and paper work from their
offices. Now the Israeli government wants to take property owned by
the ICS and has issued a court order to this effect. Bassim the director of the Hebron orphanage for girls says that the
Israeli officials came and inspected a sewing work shop in the
basement, a project set up to give local women whose husbands are in
gaol a means of earning a living.The official forbade any one from
working in the room he photographed and made an inventory of all
sewing machines and related equipment in the basement.He forbade
Bassim from moving the workshop elsewhere threatening him with a
prison sentence of five years were he to do so, he then said that the
army would come and remove the equipment after the 26th of April 2008. The Christian Peace Maker teams were concerned about the effects of
such a raid on the children so began to sleep over night in the
orphanage. At one in the morning on the 30th of April the army drove
three trucks into the playground of the orphanage, one equipped with a
winch for hauling heavy equipment.They sawed up the metal table for
cutting fabric with an angle grinder, and seized everything from the
workshop including the stock of clothes sewn by the women.They swept
the floor and left taking everything leaving the room utterly void.The
Christian Peace Maker Teams tried to speak with the soldiers about
their actions, but they refused to engage and completely ignored them. |
