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At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills - School Patrol Update
Operation Dove
Update September 2013


During the month of September OD volunteers registered 22 school days. The children were left to wait in unsafe positions for more than 13 hours, and missed more than three hours of school in total. The soldiers walked with the children during the allotted escort 65% of the times. In the registered cases (40 cases, considering both the mornings and the afternoons) the soldiers never completed the accompaniment route, leaving always the children alone in particularly dangerous areas.


The military escort was present every morning, but did not accompany the children from the agreed meeting point at the end of the chicken barns in 86% of the cases. The children waited at the barns for a total of 40 minutes, arrived late more than 5 minutes 14 times and ended up missing 3:15 hours of school – the soldiers did not walk with the children in 27% of the cases. OD volunteers called 8 times the Israeli army.

On September 3 at 7:47 am a settler`s car came from Havat Ma`on heading to the Havat Ma`on fields and drove fast towards the kids without stopping.

On September 4 the DCL didn`t answer to 4 OD volunteers calls. When the escort arrived the soldiers asked to the OD volunteers what they were supposed to do and where they had to go. Once they took the children to the gate the soldiers asked again if there was anything else that they should have done.

On September 16 the escort was made of 2 soldiers walking without the jeep. The jeep came later (at 8.00 am) to pick the soldiers up at the gate.


In the afternoons of September the soldiers provided all of the agreed escorts, however on 16 occasions the children were forced to wait for their arrival, for a total waiting time of almost 10 hours. The OD volunteers placed 21 calls to the Israeli army in 32% of the afternoons, and in all the registered cases the escort did not complete its accompaniment to the end of the path at the chicken barns, again leaving the children unprotected in high risk areas.

On September 9 and 10 the escort came back at the gate while the children were still along the route, between Ma`on and Havat Ma`on, in one of the most exposed and dangerous places.

On September 26 the soldiers were told in the morning by OD volunteers to arrive to the barns, at the end of the route, but they didn`t arrive there.



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