You can get on with your daily life in al-Khalil without meeting a Zionist – in or out of uniform – and you find yourself wondering what kind of strange shisha made the writers of the « Rough Guide » utter dire warnings about the city. « ...You could probably get away with seeing the Haram and wandering round the city without any problem. But we wouldn’t advise this... » says the Rough Guide to Jerusalem, in its section on Hebron.
My personal experience of wandering around alKhalil’s city center is one of having people – women as well as men – glance at me on the street, saying « Welcome ».
(photo: al-Khalil: a big, modern city)
I suppose that the Rough Guide, like Google maps (which can’t help you work out an itinerary in Hebron) and my phone’s weather service (which can’t understand that I’m not in the Kirbat Arba illegal colony) suffers from pro-Israel lobbying.
However, a visit to the historic old center brings you face to face with al-Khalil’s problem.
Of the four Zionist settlements, one is plumb in the city center, in buildings overlooking the souq. This is the source of constant friction. Rubbish, chemicals and other waste are thrown into the streets from the colonists windows.
(Photo: a barrier closing off access to Shuhada Street)
On the day of our visit, a Saturday, a group of colonists, accompanied by their military escort, was crossing through the souq.
Here, the rooftop of a house ajacent to the settlement.
The owners of this house have suffered harassment in attempts to incite them to sell up to settlers, we heard stories of defecation in water tanks, a pregnant woman miscarrying after being hit in the belly by a soldier’s machine gun butt, Molotov cocktails thrown into crowded rooms.
The Israeli watchtower and its twenty-four-hour guard
dominates the roofstops.
Remember that the rooftops of homes in old Middle-Eastern towns function like a room or rooms. They are generally one of the living areas of the house.
Rooftops of the old town, many buildings are empty.
The locals insist on holding out. Shopkeepers in the souq struggle to survive, but maintain their presence and the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee offers some assistance.
We are on the "wrong" side of the checkpoint here, tourists are bussed in to the Ibrahimi Mosque, but they probably don't make it this far.
Flags, but also (oddly?) the Menorah, used as a symbol of ownership and domination.
Huge menorahs are placed at very visible points on hilltop settlement buildings visible from al-Khalil.
Palestine is less policed than I expected.
This was my first manned checkpoint, despite having come from Tel Aviv via al-Quds and Bethlehem only two weeks after the publication of the presidential son-in-law’s Deal of the Century.
This is the control point for access to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, from the Palestinian/souq side.
Our gang on Shuhada Street : what used to be the main drag, closed down after Baruch Goldstein’s shooting spree at the Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994.
British and German passports get us through the controls and onto this street.
Couldn’t help thinking that sticking up flags usually implies pride.
Strange to be proud of the abandoned derelict buildings which were once the heart of the city.
The same peculiar logic applies here as at the Haram AshSharif in Jerusalem : terrorist activity by right-wing Israelis is the cause of Israeli clampdown on the Occupied Territories.
Coffee with Jews from Jerusalem, on their Sabbath outing to Hebron. (Don’t worry, the water for the coffee was heated the day before the Shabbat.)
These guys take the Torah literally and it is the source of their belief that this land is theirs. Conversation was not fluid. Two of our group have only a little Hebrew. Only one of these young men has a few words of English. We communicated enough to have the answer to the question we had been asking ourselves : what is the settler’s motivation ? Why live like this ? The religious themes were uppermost in these young visitor’s discourse.
(N.B. Financial incentives are important for many settlers in many colonies.)
Ibrahimi Mosque / the Tombs of the Patriarchs / Machpela Synagogue
Site of the 1994 massacre which is the (direct) cause of the present-day confrontations.
Considered sacred by the three religions, the building has been added to ower the centuries and has changed hands many times.
In the mosque.
The building is Herodian, then came the Byzantines, the earliest Muslims, the Crusaders....
Georgeous Minbar brought from Ashqelon in the 11th Century by Salah ed Din. Perhaps the oldest still in use.