Chris and Kim are volunteers with an organization called Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), which provides nonviolent intercession in areas of violence. They serve in the West Bank city of Hebron, where Palestinian civilians are frequently attacked and harassed by Israeli settlers. The presence of such international witnesses often reduces this violence.
Children in a small village outside of Hebron, Tuba, attend school in the neighboring village of Tuwani. The problem is, Israeli settlements lie between Tuwani and Tuba. The route around these settlements is over six miles—too long for small children to trek twice a day. There is an alternative route between settlements that reduces the journey to a little over a mile. Villagers asked CPT to accompany the children on this shorter route.
Last Wednesday, Chris and Kim picked up the children from their village at 6:30, and all began walking to school. Part of the way there, settlements on either side, Kim and two of the children had gotten a little ahead and were just turning a bend in the road, when Chris saw them suddenly stop and begin running back, screaming.
Then he saw why.
“I saw men with black masks on, dressed all in black, wielding chains, one carrying a bat, most of them wearing black.” As the five men rushed at them, Chris called out, “Please don’t hurt the children, please don’t hurt the children.”
The men smashed a rock to his head, knocking him to the ground, and began beating and kicking him with steel-toed boots. The attackers tried, unsuccessfully, to break his left wrist and dislocate his shoulder.
“I said, ‘Why are you doing this? All we’re doing is walking children to school—we’re nonviolent,’” Chris told them. “We’re Americans.”
Israeli settlers smashed Chris Brown’s head with a rock, knocked him to the ground and kicked him, puncturing his lung and breaking his ribs (Courtesy San Francisco Bay View).
An attacker laughed, and Chris heard a man say, in a heavy Israeli accent, “They’re Americans.”
Kim, meanwhile, lay face down, not moving as the men kicked and beat her. She says much of the attack is a blur—“It’s almost like for a moment you leave reality.…I just remember thinking, ‘If I just lie here like I’m unconscious, maybe they’ll leave me alone.’”
Finally, the men sauntered away, stealing Kim’s waist-pack containing her money, passport and cell phone. Unable to walk, she crawled over to Chris, who still had his phone and was able to call for help.
