Wednesday April 30, 2008

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 soldier s about their actions, but they refused to engage and completely ignored them.