SHadi Muktasen is most worried about his children, who are going crazy from boredom after being stuck at home for almost four months without going to school. And his dogs are lashing out in frustration after being caged in a small yard for more than 100 days.
His family lives in the heart of former Hebron, one of the most conflict-ridden and militarized areas in the West Bank. When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, life for the Palestinian population there came to a near halt.
Israeli security forces, which control the Muktasen area and maintain a guard post across the street, imposed an immediate lockdown, effectively amounting to house arrest, even for children.
“For the first month, we weren’t allowed to leave the house,” he said. “If you start opening the little grate on the door. [to look out]I could hear them raising their guns. ”
Garbage piled up in the courtyard because people were not allowed to open the door to collect it. He was only allowed to go out for an hour once a month to procure food for his family. Since he didn’t have much time, he just bought a bag of wheat “as if I were feeding an animal.”
Restrictions have since been eased slightly, with residents allowed to leave their homes three days a week. They can now go out every day, but an unofficial curfew that starts at 7 p.m. still remains in place. Schools remain closed and most local stores are closed as well. One barber who tried to reopen was beaten.
Palestinians living in central Hebron have become accustomed to a web of violence and control dating back more than two decades, including banning them from walking on some streets open to Israelis. But they say the current restrictions are unprecedented.
“Our life here has been difficult, but it has never been this difficult,” Muktasen said. During the Second Intifada, when there was a kind of curfew, he remembered his relatives sending food home in human chains across the rooftops of the crowded old city. There is.
This time it’s definitely worse, he said. “They’re imposing very strict conditions to get us to quit so they can keep this to themselves. It’s not a security issue.”
Other residents of H2, the part of Hebron controlled by the Israeli army, where it is stationed to protect around 800 Israeli settlers living among 34,000 Palestinians, were killed in October. He claims he has been confined in his home since the 7th and has been harassed and attacked.
Unharvested olives hang loosely on the terraces of old trees surrounding the town, and small pale green irises dot the ground, but the only people enjoying the scenery are sheep-herding settlers and tours. Only a group of Israeli soldiers inside.
“The settlers are now the masters here,” said Issa Amro, a Hebron peace activist who was detained, beaten and tortured on October 7. He is unable to fully move his arm anymore and says his doctors have told him the damage he sustained may be permanent. “I’m well known, but look what they did to me. Others are scared.”
Amro, like his Palestinian neighbors and Israeli activists, said the settlers are trying to drive Palestinian civilians out of Hebron under the pretext of fighting terrorism and are using the Hamas massacre to strengthen their position. said.
“I was not beaten or tortured because I am a member of Hamas. They know my politics. They know I am not religious,” he said. Said. “They are using the blood of Israeli and Palestinian tragedies to realize their dream of ‘rivers to sea’. [the Jordan to the Mediterranean] Without the Palestinians. What they are doing has nothing to do with security. ”
Hebron is the Palestinian Authority’s most important economic hub and the second largest city in the West Bank, and is at the center of a conflict that is deeply intertwined with religious and political reasons.
The site is occupied by 2,000-year-old ruins built by King Herod to mark the cave where Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe the remains of the patriarch Abraham and his family rest.
A sacred site to all Abrahamic religions, taking its collective name from the Biblical figures enshrined there, it has attracted pious and fanatics alike, leading to some of the worst communal violence in the last century. It is also where some of the events occurred.
In 1929, an Arab mob killed 67 Jews in Hebron, forcing others to flee. Sixty-five years later, Jewish extremist Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Muslim worshipers in the mosque above his grave.
It is one of Hamas’ most important West Bank strongholds and a melting pot for Israel’s far-right settler movement, which was founded there and now supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. His Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, lives in Hebron and his first date with his wife was reportedly at Goldstein’s tomb in the settlement there.
Under the Oslo Accords, Hebron was divided into two areas: H1, controlled by the Palestinian Authority, where most of Hebron’s 230,000 residents live, and H2, controlled by Israel.
It is here that the system of separation, which critics at home and abroad call de facto apartheid, is at its most extreme and visible in the West Bank.
The military map of the town center is an intricate grid of colors. The Red Street, which has been closed to Palestinians for more than 20 years, is “sterile.” Palestinians can walk on orange roads but cannot drive or engage in commercial activities.
The Israeli military says these security controls are necessary to protect both Israelis and Palestinians.
Settlers openly talk about their desire to expand their foothold in Hebron. Critics say the state has given it no authority to pursue this agenda since October 7, when regular troops were sent to Gaza and then drafted into the Hebron-based military unit as a reserve, effectively becoming an army. It is claimed that
The government has also distributed military weapons to civilians and settlers’ own security forces, with security forces wearing uniforms, partial uniforms, or civilian clothes with no discernable chain of command on the streets of Hebron. You can see it.
Communities are now at the mercy of unspecified armed groups that look and act more like militias than instruments of state power, said an NGO that documents Israeli military abuses in the occupied territories. Nadav Waiman, deputy director of Breaking the Silence.
“After October 7, Palestinians no longer know whether they are dealing with settlers or an army. The settlers are the army, and the army is made up of settlers.” he said. “They are raiding homes, stopping cars, and even stealing with Israel Defense Forces troops.”
“If this were the Balkans in the 1990s, I would say they were militias. But they are the Israeli army. There used to be a pretense in Hebron of upholding the rule of law. This is It was a military law, but the Palestinians were able to challenge it and appeal it. What’s happening now really feels like revenge.”
The chaotic situation was on display at the entrance to the Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron, where three men with assault rifles verbally abused an Israeli human rights defender and two journalists at a checkpoint.
One man was wearing civilian clothes, the woman was wearing a Settlement Security Forces uniform, and the other man was wearing part of a reserve uniform.
Together, this mixed security force sealed off Palestinians living in Israeli-controlled Hebron, using violent threats rather than written orders.
“There are no documents [to justify searches, detentions and closures]. That’s why I say it’s like a militia,” Amuro said. “They know what they are doing. They are making life increasingly difficult for Palestinians and forcing them to leave.”
Local residents say the Israeli military, which controls parts of Hebron, has not only confined Palestinian residents to their homes but also barred other Palestinians from passing through checkpoints controlling access. That means that even though schools are closed anyway, there are also no visiting families, no doctors or medical professionals, no repair shops, no teachers to celebrate or grieve.
“A woman had a miscarriage on October 14th. From 5 a.m. to noon, no ambulances were allowed in or out, and no one was allowed to go out,” he said, transporting cooking gas and other supplies from the nearest checkpoint. said Amuro, who hurt his back.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that there was no curfew in place in Hebron. The report said the traffic restrictions were “imposed following an assessment of the situation and operational considerations and with the aim of mitigating the damage.” [the population] “Wherever possible,” it said, adding that requests to pass through checkpoints “were reviewed in accordance with relevant standards” and that schools had not been ordered to close.
He said the claims about women who had miscarried were “totally baseless.”
The Guardian spent four hours walking and driving around central Hebron and did not see a single Palestinian outside his home. The only people on the ghostly street were soldiers and boys on bicycles, who I recognized from the yarmulkes as settlers.
“I have never seen children stuck at home for so long,” Amuro said. “There are no children in the streets now. People are very scared.”
