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Hebron: a hostage city Printer friendly page Print This
By Ahmad Jaradat
Alternative Information Center
Thursday, Jul 3, 2014

Since June 12, when three Israeli teenage settlers went missing north of Hebron, Israeli authorities have placed and kept the Hebron district under closure. 22 percent of the West Bank and 23 percent of its population were were thus set under a tight closure.


Israeli soldiers storm the Hebron area. (Photo/Hebron Defense Committee)

Since June 12, when three Israeli teenage settlers went missing north of Hebron, Israeli authorities have placed and kept the Hebron district under closure. 22 percent of the West Bank and 23 percent of its population were were thus set under a tight closure that isolates villages and towns, with checkpoints at all junctions. Some 800,000 Palestinians have essentially been taken as hostages in this area while Israeli troops an dogs searched homes, local Palestinians were attacked by soldiers and settlers, ambulances were prevented from serving the population and more than 90 people were arrested, including the head of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Furthermore, settlers exploited the situation to harass the Palestinian population. Most of the attacks these past three weeks were carried out in the Hebron's old city, in which five Israeli settlement outposts are located. Along the roads of the Hebron district, settlers attacked cars in full view of soldiers, who often cooperated with them. Several Palestinians were wounded and the windows and windshields of dozens of cars were smashed. The area's Etzion and Beit Hagai junctions were the focal points of such attacks.

In the city of Hebron, soldiers commandeered homes and temporarily evicted the residents. The soldiers and their dogs remained and slept in area homes.

"The soldiers asked me and my family to leave the house because they want to use it. When I refused they throw us out by force,” says Abed Aleem Abu Ghazaleh, a resident of Hebron.

“Soldiers entered my home with their sniffing dogs. The dogs climbed up on the mattresses, as the soldiers took photos of each other, making jokes and laughing," say Fadil Zoughair a residents of Tafouh, a Palestinian village to the west of Hebron.

In addition to the attacks and confiscation of homes, Israeli authorities restricted the right of movement of the population. Residents of Hebron under fifty years old were prevented from traveling out of the country. The Authorities stopped issuing permits to enter Jerusalem, with the exception of humanitarian cases. Thus, students and business people who needed to travel abroad were kept at home as patients who needed treatment in Jerusalem could not get it. However, while not prohibited, farmers could also not work their land – they feared attacks by settlers, and many who dared to work the land were forced out at gunpoint.

The situation has not radically changed since Israel found the bodies of the three teenage settler north west of Halhul. Israel has yet to discover and arrest whoever abducted and assassinated the teenagers, while the army resorted to the abandoned policy of punitive home demolition. Two homes owned by the alleged kidnappers, Marwan al-Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Eisha, in Halhul, and the house of a Palestinian suspected of killing an Israeli police officer, Ziad Awwad in the village of Idhna, were demolished on Monday and Tuesday.

Some restrictions, like the prohibition to travel out of the country, have recently been eased, although settler and military attacks continue.


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