"Our shops - two for home accessories and another two for car mechanics -- are located below in the building. They are closed, there is no business. In front of our house used to be the main street to Bethlehem. It was the richest area of Bethlehem here but now it is a small scary place. We are without neighbors; we just live with two families on our own. We are imprisoned; we are buried alive..."Toine van Teeffelen/ei 23.12.05
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A Palestinian man, said to have been last seen in the custody of Israeli border police, died after being found wounded and comatose beside a mule to which he had apparently been tied and dragged along a dirt road.Donald Macintyre/IndependentUK 23.12.05
Relatives of the man are seeking legal advice on whether they can secure the reopening of the investigation. They suspect the policemen detained him for seeking work in Um Touba, a Palestinian village inside Israel, without a permit, tied him to his own mule and drove it off at a gallop.
Police denied the family's version of events and said an investigation had been completed on 11 December and all border police in the area at the time had been "completely cleared" of acting in any way improperly.
The man, Mahmoud Shawawreh, 45, who had six children, left his home on his mule for the neighbouring village of Um Touba on the day of the incident. Relatives said he refused to join six other similarly detained men, including his brother Daoud, 50, in a journey by police van to a Jerusalem police station because he did not want to leave his mule behind.
