Harrassed into poverty

If you drive into the West Bank city of Hebron from the north, you enter a large, hilly expanse of white stone buildings. Every weekday, the place bustles with activity: children going to school, men at work and the incessant horns of cars. But head further south to Bab Al-Zawiye, and all this ends.

In the square that marks the entrance to the old part of the city, checkpoints divide the city in two. The 35,000 Palestinians in the sector beyond them, known as Area H2, live with violent attacks by fundamentalist Israeli settlers and a constant struggle to make a living. 

AJ, a Palestinian living in the Wadi Al Hussein district, used to make iron bars for the windows of the houses in Kiryat Arba, an illegal Israeli settlement on the outskirts of the town. He did not want to give his real name. But he had a flourishing business and was able to support his 13 children, three of whom are disabled. 

Things have changed. Settlers have started a campaign of harassment against AJ’s family. They built a tent synagogue on his land, and cut the water pipes leading to his house. 

Yet AJ’s biggest worries are economic. The presence in central Hebron of around 500 Israeli settlers has destroyed Palestinian businesses in the area. They regularly harass shopkeepers and customers. Hundreds of shops have been closed by military order. Others have closed due to settlers’ attacks on shopkeepers and customers. Graffiti on nearby walls reads “Gas the Arabs”.

Hebron is the second largest city in the West Bank, with a population of about 170,000. At its centre lies the Ibrahimi Mosque and the Cave of Machpela, revered by Jews and Muslims as the burial site of biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives. It was also the site where Baruch Goldstein, a resident of Kiryat Arba, shot dead 29 Palestinians in 1994.

Following the Oslo accords of the same year, the city was divided in two by the Hebron Protocol of 1997. Zone H1 is under Palestinian Authority control, while H2 is under Israeli security and civil administration. The 500 settlers living there are protected by up to 2000 soldiers, while the Palestinians rely on international observers - such as those sent by EAPPI - for some form of protection.

Extensive curfews after the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000 further damaged trade. When the Hamas government came into power in 2006, economic sanctions were imposed by the international community.  This led to a further drop in commercial activities.  A small commercial increase has occurred since shops in the Old City have been sponsored by the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, but H2 remains a shadow of its former self.

How did this happen? At the heart of the town lie four illegal Israeli settlements, erected from 1979 onwards. Palestinians in the immediate surroundings were evicted, for security reasons. Al Shuhada street, once a thriving shopping district, is now closed for Palestinian traffic all the way to the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Many inhabitants left. Those who stayed did so out of defiance or because they had no choice. Three out of four people now live below the poverty line, 80 per cent of adults are without work.

Al Shuhada street, which runs parallel to the Old Souq, is a procession of closed shop fronts. All entrances to the old town are barred. The market center of south Hebron has been gutted. The bus station, once the second busiest in the country, is now closed. Hebron has become a Ghost City.

The Red Cross gives out food parcels to a thousand households, and it has set up some micro-economic projects to help Palestinians regain their self-reliance. Since 1997, the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee has worked hard to restore the old market place, offering free housing, water and allowances to help shopkeepers hang on to their property. But settlers still harass their neighbors by pouring sewage on their wares, throwing rubbish into the Souq and even shooting their guns into the street, which is only 3 metres wide.

Families living in Tel Rumeida are within stone-throwing distance of their neighbors. There, the street is “for Jews only” - a flagrant violation of the obligation of occupying forces to treat all inhabitants equally.

The Palestinians of Hebron have now lived under occupation for 40 years. They have managed to survive and hold on to their conviction that they have a right to stay in their homes and fields. But slowly in H2 they are being strangled economically and forced to give up what is dear to them.