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‘Boys as young as 12 were being escorted, hands tied and sometimes blindfolded, into military jeeps’
ROSE CHACKO reports on a talk given by a volunteer from Christian Peacemaker Teams, who had just returned from three months in Hebron

A VOLUNTEER with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) came to Cheltenham recently to give a talk about his experiences volunteering in the Occupied West Bank, Palestine where he had just returned from spending three months in Hebron. 

The CPT volunteer, who had also volunteered several times with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme for Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), described Hebron as a “cauldron” for Palestinians, and spoke about his volunteer work there with CPT, for example, offering protection to Palestinian children walking to school or then home again, where they would often have to pass through Israeli military checkpoints, rows of Israeli soldiers or occasionally stone-throwing Israeli settlers.

He said he could not understand the need for soldiers to amass outside school gates, sometimes forcing young children to pass them in fear at the beginning and end of each school day. 

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