Hundreds of Palestinian and international activists protest in Hebron calling for the city’s al-Shuhada Street to be opened up to Palestinian traffic. The Israeli Army dispersed the protestors with stun grenades and tear gas. The Israeli Army entered the Old City to disperse the demonstration.
Open Shuhada Street – Click here for more photos
Palestinian youth activist and native of Al Bireh, Fadi Quran,was pepper sprayed in the face, assaulted, and arrested by Israeli forces while attending a protest calling for the reopening of a major thoroughfare for Palestinians in the city of Hebron.
Clashes broke out after Israeli police fired tear gas and used stun grenades on hundreds of Palestinians who had gathered outside al-Aqsa Mosque following the Friday Prayers to protest against Israeli attacks on the holy site earlier this week. One man was killed amid protests in nearby Qalandia following the Zionist incursion into Al Aqsa.
Some reports, however, suggest that the attack came as Palestinians were praying. The clashes followed nearly a week of unrest at the holy site.
“We were praying when they started shooting tear gas towards us,” 58-year-old Umm Mohammad told AFP.
Four Palestinians were also arrested.
Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is one of the holiest sites in Islam, has been the scene of clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian worshipers since the occupation of Palestinian lands.
On Sunday, Israeli police attacked al-Aqsa Mosque and arrested at least 18 Palestinians after Jewish settlers clashed with Palestinian worshippers at the holy site.
Israeli troops also clashed with Palestinian worshipers in the area on Tuesday and Thursday.
23 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Al-Khalil (Hebron) is a divided city. As a result of the Oslo agreements negotiated in the 1990s – the people of Al Khalil became familiar with two new terms – H1 and H2. H1 refers to 80% of the city, which is officially under control of the Palestinian Authority, while H2 makes up the remaining 20% and falls under full Israeli military control. In area H2 Palestinians are daily exposed to human rights violations to an extent that can hardly be overestated. Israel severely restricts Palestinian freedom of movement in H2 in the name of “separation,” but in practice this is a policy of segregation.
Passing through Checkpoint 56, one of eleven permantly staffed checkpoints betweeen H1 and H2, the consequences of this policy can be heard, seen, and smelled. Passing through the checkpoint, the scents, sounds and sights of the vibrant commercial city center give way to a deserted area where the only people to be seen are a few settlers strolling down emptied streets and Israeli soldiers posted on rooftoops and street corners.
Punishing the victims
Abed, resident of Shuhada Street
According to the latest UN report on freedom of movement in the West Bank, there are 90 different closure obstacles in the H2-area, that all interfere with freedom of movement for the Palestinians living in or having errands in H2. Closure obstacles can be staffed checkpoints, roadblocks, electric fences with barbed wire, and more. Along with these closures, Israel has imposed a ban on all Palestinian vehicular traffic on Shuhada street, which was once the vibrant main street – connecting the North with West of Al-Khalil. In large sections of Shuhada Street, the Israeli army also enforces a ban on pedestrian traffic.
The Oslo Agreement gave Israel the chance to normalize and justify military emergency conditions and zones, already in place since 1994. That year a known member of the settler community of Khalil, Baruch Goldstein, walked fully armed into the Ibrahami Mosque and killed 29 people – injuring a over 100. Israel’s response to this act reveals an important principle in Israels policy applied in the H2 area – collectivepunishment of the victims. Israel’s immediate response to the massacre was a 14 days of round-the-clock curfew – followed by stern restrictions on freedom of movement – with the argument that these measures would prevent reprisal against settlers.
As human rights worker Hisham Shabarati from Al-Haq laconically notes “If an Israeli kills a Palestinian – we will be punished – if an Israeli kills an Israeli – we will be punished.”
Israel used a situation of emergency to deny Palestinians basic human rights. With the argument of protecting a community of about 650 settlers they imposed, according to Shabarati, disproportionately harsh policies that far exceed any needs for security. Denying inhibatants of Shuhada Street to use their front door, for instance, serves an agenda of making life impossible for Palestininans in H2. As Shabarati stated “Israel is looking for excuses rather than reasons for imposing the policy of segregation. ”
Childhood on Shuhada Street during the Intifada
Abed is a young man living on Shuhada Street, who at the moment studies English at Hebron University. Remembering his childhood during the Second Intifada, week-long curfews and being denied entry/exit through his front door comes to his mind. “Often times,” he said, “the school would be closed for ten days and then open for one day and so on – the curfew was announced from jeeps driving around the city. We didn’t know for how long the curfew will last.”
According to statistics from B’tselem, Israel imposed curfews on Palestinians for a total of 377 days during the first three years of the Intifada (over 1/3 of the time). The Israeli military used every excuse it could find or devise to tighten an iron fist around the Palestinian population . Although the Israeli military excused repression of civilians during the Second Intifada in the name of “military emergency” – few restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement in H2 have been removed since then. Given that the number of Israeli soldier and civilian casualties by Palestinians has been at a minimum since the end of the Intifada, these ’emergency measures’ cannot be justified.
Israei military checking IDs along Shuhada Street
There have been limited improvements. Some inhabitants of Shuhada Street have been allowed intermittent vehicular access to their houses, and in recent years Abed and his family have won the opportunity to receive guests in their house. However these regained freedoms are not anywhere near to the normalcy Palestinian residents of H2 expect. For Abed part of the struggle lies in not normalizing this situation of denied freedom within his own city. “Just three days ago,” he said, “I was detained for three hours on my way to the University. For me the situation feels somehow normal – but it is not!”
The 90 closure obstacles and thousands of soldiers stationed in Khalil are every day delaying and denying access to inhabitants of Khalil. Severe restrictions on freedom of movement, combined with direct military closure of over 500 shops, have successfully drained the H2 area of life and business. The Palestinans residents of Khalil have an obvious right to freedom of movement and to access Shuhada Street. Open Shuhada Street!
Andreas is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
A study conducted by Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage in Israel has revealed that Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surrounding area has been subjected to around 100 attacks and violations in 2011 alone. The study noted that the attacks varied between physical attacks and plots which pose threats to the sanctity and security of the mosque. The study also documented provocative statements constituting incitement by Israelis to damage the third holiest site in the Muslim world.
The report claims that around 5,000 Israelis, including Jewish settlers and members of other extremist groups, stormed into Al-Aqsa in 2011. The intruders performed Talmudic rituals, sometimes in public, other times in secret, including carrying parts of the Torah inside the mosque.
There has also been an escalation in the frequency of incursions by Israeli intelligence officers and political and official figures into Al-Aqsa Mosque.
More than 200,000 tourists were granted admittance to the mosque, sometimes violating its sanctity by wearing scanty clothing.
Al-Aqsa has witnessed a campaign of unprecedented military presence; strict measures preventing Muslims from going to the mosque; and acts aimed at decreasing the continuous Muslim presence in the Noble Sanctuary, through banning orders and limiting entry to certain age groups. The Israeli Occupation Authorities also prevented 3.7 million Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from reaching Occupied Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque to conduct acts of worship therein.
While the Israelis have blocked essential maintenance and reconstruction within the mosque compound, Jewish organisations’ calls for the mosque to be destroyed and a temple to be built in its place have increased in number. The year 2011 saw a campaign of excavations and the construction of long, interlinked tunnels underneath Al Aqsa and the surrounding area in all directions. The tunnels are to have “Jewish synagogues and Judaisation centres”. What has been notable about the excavations last year is that they have been more overt, unlike previous years.
Israeli efforts to Judaise the area have included work at the Muslim-owned Buraq (“Wailing”) Wall and the proposed demolition of the historic Magharba Gate Bridge. The report notes that the latter was saved, temporarily at least, by the effects of the Arab Spring and concerns raised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel has plans to transform the area around Al-Aqsa into so-called “Talmudic gardens”, which will incorporate tourist centres and commercial shopping malls. All of this is in addition to the increasing number of illegal Jewish settlers and settlements in districts such as Ras Al-Amoud.
The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage has issued a warning that the Israeli Occupation Authorities could seek to capitalise on the developments of the Arab Spring so as to damage Al-Aqsa Mosque and Sanctuary in 2012. Intelligence reports, it says, predict serious attacks against Al-Aqsa by extremist Jews. Such predictions follow statements by former Knesset (Israeli Parliament) Member Avraham Burg that Al-Aqsa will be demolished or torched while Netanyahu is in office; and this, he claimed, will be followed by the establishment of the so-called Third Temple. In the light of these serious threats to the Holy Mosque, the Foundation called on Muslims and Arabs to put Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa at the top of their priorities for action.
21 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
If you ask an Israeli settler in or around Al-Khalil (Hebron) what calls them to live on contested land, most will speak to a religious connection to the city and the Cave of the Machpelach (“patriarchs”), where Jews, Muslims, and Christians come to revere the biblical figures believed to be buried there. A series of signs posted nearby along Shuhada Street, the once-main road and market district now closed to Palestinians, tell a story of Hebronite Jewish habitation dating from biblical times, brought to a sharp and bloody end with a 1929 pogrom, which resulted in the deaths of 67 Jewish residents and the displacement of the survivors. Citing this narrative, many of today’s settlers justify their occupation of the old city as a rebirth and continuation of this community, a story echoed in publications distributed by the Gutnick Center (a Jewish cultural center) and soldier-escorted weekly tours through the Palestinian market. The problem with this narrative is that no one, not even the survivors’ descendants, agrees on it.
Competing narratives of the 1929 Pogram – Click here for more images
On Monday, February 20th, the Jerusalem Post published an article presenting the conflict between the survivors’ descendants as a microcosm for Jewish public opinion, some of whom support the settlements and a growing number who oppose Hebron’s especially active settler community, one which Yair Keidan calls “a loaded bomb that can blow up peace altogether.” Both sides have signed petitions to the Israeli government, asking variously to maintain, evacuate, and/or halt settlement activity, and both groups claim a right to the legacy of their parent community.
“You can’t bring back the dead,” said Ya’acov Castel, a survivor from 1929, “but there are people living here now who are carrying out the dream of the Jews who lived here for hundreds of years.” Yona Rochlin, whose family went back many generations in pre-1929 Hebron, argues the opposite—pointing out that the majority of settlers are US immigrants, who have settled in a foreign city unfamiliar with the customs, language, or neighborly habits of the people they claim as spiritual forebearers. Unlike the predominantly Sephardi and Mizrahi (Spanish/North African and Middle Eastern respectively) Jewish minority that coexisted with a Muslim majority for five centuries, she says that today’s settlers “came to the city to take revenge for the 1929 massacre and their main idea was to drive out the Arabs and turn Hebron into a Jewish city.”
Hebronite settlers have many claims to fame, including the first West Bank settlement Kiryat Arba (founded 1968, pop. 7200) and the only settlements within the bounds of a Palestinian city—Avraham Avinu, Beit Hadassah, and Beit Romano, which lie at the heart of the Old City and fall under Israeli military control. They are also known to be among the most violent and hardliner, with many claiming allegiance to the Kahanist, Gush Emunim, and other extremist Jewish political and religious sects. Particularly infamous Kahanists include Baruch Marzel, founder of the Jewish National Front, and Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 massacred 29 and injured over 150 Muslims at prayer in the Mosque al-Ibrahimi. Today Goldstein, who was killed during the attack, is venerated as a hero and martyr—and his tomb in Kiryat Arba continues to draw extremist pilgrims, even though his shrine was removed in 1999.
Rochlin, a politically active parent and child of conservative Jewish parents, in 1996 coauthored an open letter to the Israeli government, “Message from the original Jewish community of Hebron: Evacuate settlers,” which stated, “[Hebronite settlers] are alien to the culture and way of life of the Hebron Jews, who in the course of generations created a heritage of peace between peoples and understanding between faiths.” She sees evidence of this tradition in the fact that Muslim neighbors intervened to save her family and over 400 more when the Jewish community was attacked in 1929. Who exactly did the killing, and from where, is uncertain—but there is surprisingly little disagreement over the 19+ Palestinian families that sheltered and defended Jews. Although some Palestinian community members invited their neighbors to stay or return, by 1936 the British Mandate had relocated the remaining Jews to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and elsewhere.
Curiously, although the Israeli Jews’ narratives tell radically different stories, many area Palestinians also know a great deal about the pogrom and mourn the loss of friends and neighbors. For Muhammad, head of the Abu Aisha family who live in the famed ‘caged house’ on Tel Rumeida, where their home is surrounded by settlement homes, it is a matter of family pride that his father is named among the Palestinians to save Jewish residents. Nonetheless, the Abu Aisha family struggles with daily harassment at the hands of settlers, who occupy land all around the home. Hajj Yussef, one of the few surviving Palestinians who responded in 1929, talks about “our Palestinian Jews,” who dressed and spoke like non-Jewish neighbors. To Yussef, like the children of his refugee neighbors, the obstacle to peace in Hebron lies not in difference but attitude and actions: “I have no problem living with the Jews, like we lived many years ago. But today’s settlers are not Palestinian Jews, they came here from abroad. And I have a problem if the Jews live in my country as occupiers and settlers.”
Open Shuhada Street, the international campaign to end Israeli Apartheid in Al-Khalil/Hebron will continue February 20th through 25th, with actions and cultural events in Khalil and around the world. Each day, we will cover a different aspect of the Occupation’s effects on Shuhada Street and the city generally.
Continue to follow www.palsolidarity.org throughout the week for more stories and analysis.
Aaron is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
