Living with Settlers

By Sultana Begum

Fawizyaa Abu Ode’s Story

Fawizyaa Abu Ode is 36 years old. She lives in the Wadi-al Hussein area of Hebron close to two settlements called the New Settlement Point and Kiryat Arba. She is suffering from breast cancer. Fawizyaa’s husband Hamad is in the last stages of medication for stomach cancer. Fawizyaa also has a 12-year-old daughter suffering from blood cancer.

The family live on food aid as both Fawizyaa and her husband are unable to work due to their illness. Fawizyaa has eight children to look after. Unable to drive and move freely, a lack of health facilities in the area means Fawizyaa is no longer getting treatment for her cancer. She refuses to leave her husband and children. Listening to Fawizyaa’s story you cannot help but think that her family has been dealt a cruel blow.

But Fawizyaa’s story gets much worse. Her 8-year-old son was hospitalised for two days after settlers threw stones, hitting him on the head. Her son is no longer able to speak and is in need of psychological treatment. I am told that most Fridays and Saturdays settlers throw stones at the family’s home. A governmental monitoring mission based in Hebron called the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) has built some wire fencing around their house but the family stays locked in their house on these days for fear of attacks.

Fawizyaa is also very likely to lose her home. Her home, which was built three years ago has been issued with a demolition order by the Israeli authorities. This is a common feature in the West Bank. Palestinians are unable to attain building permits as they are refused building permits by the Israeli authorities. Fawizyaa has three months to vacate her home.

Settlements in Hebron

Over the years Jewish settlement in Hebron has grown. There are five main settlements in Hebron. Settlers live in and among the Old City area, in what used to be the commercial centre of the city, the areas of Tel Rumeida, Wadi al Hussein and A-Ras. Each of the settlement points is a building or a small group of adjacent buildings. See map of Hebron’s city centre.

The settlements in Hebron are:

• Beit Hadassah — Set up in 1979 in a former clinic. It houses approximately 31 families, the Hebron heritage museum, a library school and synagogue. Opposite the Cordorba School, which I provide protective accompaniment for, because both the school and the Palestinian pupils have been subject to attacks from settlers.
• Tel Rumeida settlement — A collection of caravans and an apartment block. Set up in 1984 under the leadership of Baruch Marzel, an extreme right-winger from New York who founded the Jewish National Front and believes in the expulsion of Palestinians from their land.
• Beit Romano — A religious school and military camp. The military camp also has families living within it. They have lived there for over 10 years and use the same gate as the soldiers.
• Avraham Avinu — Is the largest settlement, built in 1989. It is on the site of the old 16th Century Jewish quarter and more recently the wholesale vegetable and meat market of Hebron. It houses apartments, offices, a health clinic, and nursery school.
• New Settlement Point — Ironically called Beit Shalom or the House of Peace by resident settlers. It is only one year old. Situated in the heart of the a-Ras Palestinian neighbourhood in Hebron. In the twelve months that have passed, despite the decision of the Defence Minister at the time it was established to evacuate the settlement, the settlement has grown. It has been connected to the electricity grid and has undergone construction and renovation work.

In addition there are a number of other settlements on the outskirts of the city. The largest is called Kiryat Araba. Kiryat Arba was established in 1968 soon after Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967. It has around 6000 people living in the settlement and has a strong connection to the situation in Hebron. It was settlers from Kiryat Araba that began squatting in Beit Hadassah, resulting in the creation of the first settlement within the city itself. The settlements are connected by a contiguous strip of road leading from Kiryat Araba to the tomb of Abraham in the Old City.

The existence of a small number of settlers and justifications about their security and protection has led to policies instigated by the Israeli authorities that have created legal and physical segregation between the Israeli settlers and the Palestinian majority. These policies have also led to the collapse of the once thriving economic heart of Hebron and forced many Palestinians to leave the area. The Palestinian families that remain are those with few economic means. The economic, social and cultural centre of Hebron now resembles a ‘ghost town’.

Hebron today is divided in to H1 and H2 sectors after an agreement on the withdrawal of the Israeli army was reached in January 1997. Sector H1 (80%) is under the control of the Palestinian Authority and Sector H2 (20%) is under Israeli control. Sector H2 consists of parts of the Old City including the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Al-Ibrahimi Mosque.

See photographs of Hebron’s settlements and settlers (click on thumbnail on right hand side to see subsequent pictures)

Prohibition of Palestinians' movement in city centre

From 1994 Palestinian residents began experiencing restrictions on their movement imposed after 27 Muslim worshippers were killed by an extremist Jewish settler from the Kiryat Arba settlement. A policy of limited separation was introduced at the site of the killings — the Tomb of Abraham consisting of the Al-Ibrahimi mosque and Jewish synagogue. Israeli authorities closed off a section of Shuhada Street (the main shopping street), claiming this was necessary to ensure the safety of the settlers. Then dozens of shops in this section were closed by military order, followed by the two gas stations in the street. This section of the street then became subject to opening and closure.

The restrictions on Palestinian movement are enforced by a large network of staffed checkpoints and physical roadblocks. From 2000 onwards the army continued restricting movement on the streets leading to the areas where settlements were located.

This network of barriers has created a contiguous strip of land in the city center, along which Palestinian vehicles are completely forbidden; many sections of the main roads are also closed to Palestinian pedestrians. The most important of these sections of road is Shuhada Street, which is closed to Palestinian vehicles and pedestrians between the Beit Hadassah and Avraham Avinu settlement points. The strip blocks the main north south traffic artery in the city, and therefore affects the entire city. (See map illustrating movement restrictions)

In August 2005, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) counted 101 physical obstructions of different kinds in H2. The staffed checkpoints prevent Palestinians from H1 entering H2 by car and restrict crossing by foot. In 2000 Israeli authorities closed down the Shuhadah Street and many other streets.

Curfews

During the first three years of the intifada, the army imposed a round-the-clock curfew on the Palestinians in the city centre of Hebron for more than 377 days total, including a consecutive period of 182 days, with short breaks to obtain provisions (Palestinians were forced to stay in their homes for day and night and for weeks and months, except for a few hours once or twice a week to enable them to replenish their provisions). These restrictions resulted in economic and emotional hardship for Palestinian families. In contrast settlers were not subject to curfews or similar movement restrictions. This system of prolonged curfews was challenged by the Association for Civil Rights in 2003 and although their petition was rejected prolonged curfews have ceased being used. But the damage had already been done.

Closure of commercial activities, vacation of houses and other services

The findings of a survey conducted by B'Tselem in November-December 2006 show that least at least:
1,014 Palestinian housing units in the centre of Hebron have been vacated by their occupants. This number represents 41.9 percent of the housing units in the Old City and city centre market area. Sixty-five percent (659) of the empty apartments became vacant during the course of the second Intifada. 1,829 commercial businesses are no longer open for business. This number represents 76.6 percent of all the commercial businesses in the area. Of the closed businesses, 62.4 percent (1,141) were closed during the second Intifada. At least 440 of them closed because of military orders. Non commercial organisations also providing important services to the areas residents were also closed including the Ministry of Supply, the Ministry of Information, the Waqf (building or plot of land for religious or charitable purposes), the Farmers' Association, the Women’s Association, and other such entities formerly operated in the markets area, in the Shuhada area, and in the Old City market area. In recent years, they moved farther away, most of them to H1.

During the second Intifada, the few medical centers in this area were also closed.

Although attempts are being made to rejuvenate the Old City area of Hebron, Israel’s ongoing restrictions and prohibitions make it impossible for Palestinians to renovate and rejuvenate the area. Thousands of families remain jobless and around 1800 families — 13,000 people — are forced to live on food aid.

See photographs of empty businesses and homes and check points and movement restrictions

Settler violence

Palestinian residents of the H2 area have been subject to different forms of violence over the years — some of which have been captured on film by Internationals and Palestinians themselves — as some families experiencing frequent attacks and harassment have been provided with video cameras by human rights groups. Violent incidents have ranged from physical assaults, including beatings, at times with clubs, stone throwing, and hurling of refuse, sand, water, chlorine, and empty bottles. Settlers have destroyed shops and doors, committed thefts, and chopped down fruit trees, attacked school children. Settlers have also been involved in gunfire, attempts to run people over, poisoning of a water well, breaking into homes, spilling of hot liquid on the face of a Palestinian, and the killing of a young Palestinian girl. Soldiers are generally positioned on every street corner in and near the settlement points, but in most cases they do nothing to protect Palestinians from the settlers' attacks. The police also fail to properly enforce the law and rarely bring the assailants to justice. The failure to take action by the authorities gives immunity to settlers carrying out such violent acts and has contributed to what the Israeli human rights group B’tselem describes as a “quiet transfer” of the areas Palestinian residents.

Presence of soldiers in city

Soldiers are particularly visible and active throughout the city. Some figures point to as many as 2000 soldiers deployed in Hebron city. Along with soldiers you also have the presence of police and border police in the Hebron city centre. This brings with it additional problems, including excessive and unjustified use of force, and abuse of the powers granted to them by law. Violence, arbitrary house searches, seizure of houses, harassment, detaining passers-by, and humiliating treatment are a constant daily reality for Palestinians and have led many of them to move to safer places.

The Qanibi Family’s story

On 13th March Mohammed Qanibi was about to move in to his newly renovated home in the Old City of Hebron, along with his five month's pregnant wife and five children. The family had waited one year to move in to their new home. Mohammed’s newly renovated house is located close to the Avraham Avinu settlement near the Old City.

The family received a visit from a number of settlers demanding to look around their home. This was soon followed by approximately ten soldiers and four policemen. The soldiers welded shut five doors to the family’s home, removing all the contents in the house and storing them in one room. They refused to let the family remove their possessions and locked the door taking the key with them. Mohammed was arrested and fined 500 shekels.

The family is currently living in one room in the same house as the Israeli soldiers declared the newly-renovated part as a “Closed Military Area”. The locked room, which contains the family’s possessions, also included Mohammed’s wife's medicine, the children’s clothes, kitchen items as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross food kit the family usually receives on a monthly basis. The family have lost all their worldly possessions and their dream of a new home.

See photo’s soldiers in city, methods of harassment used by soldiers and Fawizyaa Abu Ode and the Qanibi family being evicted from their home