‘Death to Arabs’ sprayed on Palestinian kindergarten in Hebron

By Mairav Zonszein November 8, 2013 | Edit

The only Palestinian kindergarten in the Israeli-controlled part of Hebron is vandalized with threatening hate speech. Similar slogans found elsewhere in the H-2 part of the city.

Israeli settlers vandalized a Palestinian kindergarten in Hebron, spray-painting “Death to Arabs” on its wall, it was discovered this week. This is the only kindergarten in the Israeli-controlled section of Hebron to which Palestinian parents can send their three- to five- year-old children without them having to pass through an Israeli checkpoint. This is what the children saw when they arrived:

'Death to Arabs' sprayed on Palestinian kindergarten in Hebron

Palestinian kindergarten in Hebron vandalized with “Death to Arabs” graffiti (Photo: Avner Gvaryahu, Breaking the Silence)

The kindergarten is located near Shuhada Street in H-2, the part of Hebron entirely under Israeli control and is home to about 30,000 Palestinians and 500 settlers. It is the site of some of the harshest restrictions on freedom of Palestinian movement in the West Bank.

The kindergarten was built over the last few months by volunteers from Youth Against Settlements (YAS), a Palestinian activist group coordinated by Issa Amro. Amro is the same activist whose home was stormed by IDF troops and used as a military training site during the Iftar holiday following Ramadan a few months ago.

Watch: IDF soldiers train inside Hebron Muslim cemetery

Earlier this week YAS reported that settlers came to the kindergarten and tried to prevent them from working on it, in some cases pushing and shoving them. When Israeli forces arrived, they arrested Amro and a 15 year old based on settlers’ claims that they were attacked. After police saw a video recording of the incident, however, Amro and the teenager were released, according to YAS.

In a separate and weird incident this week, Israeli settlers sprayed the same signature “Death to Arabs” slogan on a door in Hebron’s wholesale market, also in H-2, right across the street from the largest settlement, Avraham Avinu.

Avner Gvaryahu from Breaking the Silence, who serves as a tour guide for the group in Hebron, described the second set of graffiti as bizarre because no Palestinians ever walk around that area because they are totally barred from it. In other words, no Palestinians will even see it. It’s just there for the Israeli settlers.

“Death to Arabs” sprayed on door of door near Hebron’s wholesale market. (Photo: Avner Gvaryahu, Breaking the Silence)

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TEST TEST GAL Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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