Hebron
Hebron has been a site of conflict for many decades and the way it has been divided by the Israeli military and settlers was perhaps one of the most shocking things we saw all week. To understand some of the background to Hebron being a site of extreme tension and conflict we need to go back to 1994.
In that year an Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein entered the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, the site of the tombs of Abraham and his wife Sarah, and killed 29 Palestinian worshippers and wounded 125 others with an automatic assault rifle. He was killed on the spot by survivors.
While the Israeli Government condemned the massacre and made illegal Baruch's extreme Kach movement, they refused demands for all settlers to be disarmed and for an international force to protect Palestinians. In response to Palestinian demonstrations, the Government closed certain Hebron streets to Palestinians allowing only settlers into them, resulting in Palestinians business being closed.
Goldstein's burial site is now a place of pilgrimage for some Jewish extremists, although a memorial placed there has been dismantled by the Israeli authorities. However the Ibrahimi Mosque has been divided by the Government with half being made into a synagogue. The tombs of Abraham and Sarah in in the synagogue and Muslim worshippers who wish to see them must look at them through a metal screen.
There are now closed areas in the old city of Hebron where only setters and military are allowed to enter. We saw barricaded streets, barbed wire and watch towers. As we walked through the old city we went through the usual press and bustle to quieter streets with little activity to empty streets with closed shops.
In some parts of the old city the closed settler areas are above Palestinian market streets. Here the market holders have erected steel mesh canopies over the streets because the settlers throw rubbish and worse down on to the Palestinians below. We had seen this in Jerusalem also. One house we were invited to enter has an internal courtyard with a steel mesh canopy to protect from the settlers who lived above. On this occasion the mesh had also been covered in plastic sheeting as the settlers had thrown and acidic liquid on to children playing below.
In Hebron the confiscation of properties and the gradual encroaching of settlers into Palestinian areas continues. In one area of the market a group of international volunteers who are part of a Christian group are keeping a continuous presence in a house which has been under constant threat of confiscation. We were able to go up to the roof to look over the one of the settler areas but were warned to be careful as a few months ago a group visitors was attacked by the military with sonic grenades, a non-lethal weapon which makes a sudden, shocking and deafening noise.
In that year an Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein entered the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, the site of the tombs of Abraham and his wife Sarah, and killed 29 Palestinian worshippers and wounded 125 others with an automatic assault rifle. He was killed on the spot by survivors.
While the Israeli Government condemned the massacre and made illegal Baruch's extreme Kach movement, they refused demands for all settlers to be disarmed and for an international force to protect Palestinians. In response to Palestinian demonstrations, the Government closed certain Hebron streets to Palestinians allowing only settlers into them, resulting in Palestinians business being closed.
Goldstein's burial site is now a place of pilgrimage for some Jewish extremists, although a memorial placed there has been dismantled by the Israeli authorities. However the Ibrahimi Mosque has been divided by the Government with half being made into a synagogue. The tombs of Abraham and Sarah in in the synagogue and Muslim worshippers who wish to see them must look at them through a metal screen.
There are now closed areas in the old city of Hebron where only setters and military are allowed to enter. We saw barricaded streets, barbed wire and watch towers. As we walked through the old city we went through the usual press and bustle to quieter streets with little activity to empty streets with closed shops.
In some parts of the old city the closed settler areas are above Palestinian market streets. Here the market holders have erected steel mesh canopies over the streets because the settlers throw rubbish and worse down on to the Palestinians below. We had seen this in Jerusalem also. One house we were invited to enter has an internal courtyard with a steel mesh canopy to protect from the settlers who lived above. On this occasion the mesh had also been covered in plastic sheeting as the settlers had thrown and acidic liquid on to children playing below.
In Hebron the confiscation of properties and the gradual encroaching of settlers into Palestinian areas continues. In one area of the market a group of international volunteers who are part of a Christian group are keeping a continuous presence in a house which has been under constant threat of confiscation. We were able to go up to the roof to look over the one of the settler areas but were warned to be careful as a few months ago a group visitors was attacked by the military with sonic grenades, a non-lethal weapon which makes a sudden, shocking and deafening noise.
There is more information here: https://electronicintifada.net/content/hebron-settlements-make-palestinian-life-nearly-impossible/7138
Martin
Many of the shops in the old city of Hebron which were near to the street which had been taken over by the Israeli settlers, were closed, and the few that remained open seemed rather desperate for customers: it seemed as if all the commercial activity had gone to the more modern streets outside the centre of the city. We saw heavily armed soldiers go into a military compound, directly opposite the shop where a child was standing in a Palestinian traditional dress, trying to get passers-by to go into the shop, where her dignified father was selling some craft works, such as those dresses, and embroidered headscarves. This was where I bought some presents to bring back to London. Small scale craft production seems to be the only kind of production allowed by the occupation. The compound into which these scowling soldiers withdrew was a tall modern building, which had been a school until it was commandeered for the huge numbers of troops that guard the small colony of settlers in the city centre to use to dominate the area. A few shops down, on the corner opposite the school, above a boarded-up shop, was a first-floor dwelling where soldiers had that day broken down the door and done a search of the premises..they had given no reason, and the family several hours later still did not know why they had been singled out for this invasion of their home.
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