Hebron: Under Siege from Within

Hebron is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world and should be a tourist goldmine, but Hebron’s got problems, big ones. In 1929, 67 Jews were murdered and over a hundred where injured by 1000s of rioters from Hebron and the surrounding villages reacting to the influx of Jews to Palestine sparked in part by British Foreign secretary Lord Balfour’s generous offer of a state in 1917.

After the riots, the British rulers of Palestine moved the remaining Jews in Hebron to Jerusalem, ending centuries of continuous Jewish inhabitation of a place which contains the purported resting place of Abraham, father of the monotheistic religions.  Jewish settlers started to come to the town after it was occupied by Israel in the war of 1967, seeking a return to one of the spiritual epicenters of Judaism.

The EAPPI programme is the one of a host of international organizations who come to provide a protective presence in a divided city. The Hebron Protocols of 1994 put 140,000 of the Palestinian population under the control of the newly formed Palestinian Authority control while 30000 Palestinians and 500 Jews in the oldest part of the city remained under full Israeli military control. The part of the city under Israeli military control is known as H2.

A priority of the army in H2 is to protect the 500 Jewish settlers who have moved into Palestinians homes either by force or by paying grossly inflated prices for properties. Many live above top of a narrow marker street leading to the Ibrahimi mosque. Here above the street there are grills in place to stop the rubbish settlers throw out their windows falling on the heads of Palestinian traders and their customers.

In 1994 The Ibrahimi Mosque was the site of a massacre when Baruch Goldstein, an American-born Israeli doctor, opened fire on Muslim worshippers, killing 29 and wounding 125. Harsh security measures were imposed on Palestinians in the wake of the violence which followed the shootings. Since that time, through various failed piece initiatives and a Palestinian uprising the measures have tightened and have resulted in the stagnation and decline of the local economy

One of the tasks of an Ecumenical Accompanier is to stand entrance to Ibrahimi mosque and monitor the passing of Palestinians as they enter on a Friday to pray. At the entrance to a mosque, cages and electronic turnstiles, operated by soldiers control the movement of Palestinians. A further set of turnstiles manned by soldiers is in place at the entrance to check the IDs of the Palestinians.

As I stand there I observe a soldier cock his gun to the head of 10 year old Palestinian boy as his colleague looks on in amusement. A sign to his right says in Hebrew, Arabic and English, marking the entrance to the adjacent tomb of Abeer (a holy Jewish site) says “Kindly show respect for the sanctity of this site.” It seems like a cruel joke.

Close to the entrance of the mosque, Abed and his son Mohammed sells trinkets to passersby. Abed’s business is dying, but he talks easily with and with a smile on his face to the soldiers, who are in the process of barring the entry of a 15 year old boy who used to work is his shop when Abed could afford to have paid help. Shuhada street, a few hundred yards away has been closed to Palestinians since the Ibrahimi massacre. It means his business has suffered greatly. He has been offered 10 times the price of his shop from settler groups but refuses to take the money.

Shuhada Street in one of H2s main thoroughfares, but the perversity of its closure to Palestinians due to massacre by a settler is somehow lost on the town’s Jewish population, who walk defiantly up and down the desolation, leaving graffiti saying “no mice or Arabs” and “only Jews sell to Jews” on the welded shut metal hoardings at the front of building which were once at the centre of the West Bank’s economy.

The closures in Hebron are working. Since 2000, 20,000 Palestinians have left the city. According to a study by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), conducted in 2009, 77 percent of the Palestinians in Hebron's Old City in H2 live below the poverty line. This is an extreme form of structural violence, whereby Palestinians grow more impoverished and alienated by the military endorsement of an aggressive form of colonization based on the religious fervor and frequent violence of the settler minority.

One of the jobs of the 2000 or so soldiers in Hebron is accompanying settler tours of the Old City where Jewish sympathizers from all over Israel and the world get a private tour of the old city with complete army protection. When we follow one, kept out of earshot and threatened with arrest on several occasions the soldiers seem to be particularly fearful of Palestinian children as they play on the streets and peer out of their windows; as one of the soldiers said to me with serious urgency “little ones become big ones”. He was only a kid himself, no older than 20.

H1, which is supposed to be under Palestinian control, also contains patrols of  Israeli soldiers who police neighbourhoods were a number of violent settlers have moved in. In Tel Rumedia settler harassment has forced Palestinians to seal their front doors and access their homes through rooftops, ladders and back alleys out of harm’s way.

At the home of Mashim, we climbed into his backyard down a ladder and listened as he told us how a notorious settler activist, Yvette Shakin had finally been arrested and charged after years of physical and verbal abuse directed at her Palestinian neighbours. She had attacked his nephew, grinding a stone into his mouth. It had been the Jewish holiday of Purim the week before and he showed us a video of settlers celebrating it on the street outside of his house, chanting “death to Arabs!” with soldiers standing beside them, keeping the peace.

“Debased”, “degraded” and “inhuman” are some of the words which Israelis use to describe the acts of terrorism inflicted upon them by Palestinians. They also accurately describe the actions of settlers in Hebron, but such self awareness is sadly beyond this section of Israeli society. Prominent figures in the Israeli government, including former Prime Ministers have been strong in their condemnation of the actions of hard-line settlers in Hebron, saying they do not represent Israeli society, but instead shame it. This condemnation seems contradictory in the light of a high intensity, crippling military occupation which seems to protect and support the Jewish residents and a government policy which legislates against settlers as civilians and Palestinians under military law.

I left Hebron after two days with one solitary cause for hope. At a protest against the closure of a nearby village I watched a middle aged Israeli woman remonstrate with soldiers for over an hour, trying with all her might to make the young men see the fault in what was happening. She had a son about to leave home for the army. “The worst thing is,” she said to me, “is that they must believe in what they are doing”.

When Lord Balfour made his declaration in 1917 which supported the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine it contained the proviso that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” 93 years later, Hebron is an extreme example of how this guileless and naïve promise has been forgotten. It is testament to the arrogant and lofty ideals of imperialism and the damage they leave behind.

I work for Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) as an ecumenical accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this email are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer (QPSW) or the World Council of Churches. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including posting it on a website), or distribute it further, please first contact the QPSW Programme Manager for I–oPt teresap@quaker.org.uk for permission.

Occupation: As Easy as A, B and C

Abu Ayl stands with us on the roof of his house in the picturesque West Bank Village of Far’ata. The landscape around us is spectacular: behind us to the west in far the distance -inaccessible to West Bank Palestinians- is a shimmering golden band of Mediterranean sea and the fertile plains of Israel; to the south, rows of olive covered hills slalom towards the large Israeli settlement of Ariel, which runs the length of the finger shaped mountain marking the horizon about 10 kilometres away. A mile away to the north east, the pretty, developed and prosperous looking Israeli settlement of Qedumim nestles in the hills amongst pine trees. Around us are the Palestinian villages of Immatin and Far’ata.  Abu points towards  the Israeli settlement outpost of Havat Gil’ad around ½ a mile to the east.

Abu Ayl

“These caravans are new,” He says, pointing to some structures at the edge of the loose cluster of shacks and buildings; “They were not there a few weeks ago.”

Abu Ayl owns land over the brow of the hill just in front to the Havat Gil’ad outpost but is not allowed to access it except for two days in a year and only then under Israeli army supervision. The day before meeting us he had went to his land where Israeli soldiers were posted to prevent Jewish settlers attacking him. He found 150 of his olive trees had been taken down by chainsaw. The soldiers looked on as he returned to his house and came back with a camera to record the damage. As he took pictures a solider came over to him and asked him:

“How does this make you feel?”

“Angry. I want to do something about this...it hurts that I can’t do anything.”

“I don’t blame you.” the soldier said; “I’d feel the same”

An example of the damage done to Abu Ayl's 50-100 year old Olive Trees

We look across at the Havat Gil’ad outpost. Except for the electricity cables running out of it along the hill tops towards Qedumim its collection of tents and caravans look like the setting for a Western movie. It is occupied by extremist settlers who believe they have a God given right to occupy any land in the area they refer to the “Jewish Heartlands” of Judea and Samaria, and which the rest of the world knows as the West Bank. The outpost (like all settlements here, even the plush Qedumim to the north-west and the 20,000 strong urban block of Ariel to the south) is illegal under Article 49 of the 4th Geneva convention, but outposts such as this (of which there are over 100 in the West Bank) are illegal even under Israeli law and as such should not be provided with civic services. Havat Gil’ad has been there since 2001; despite its illegality the villagers in Far’ata say the Israeli authorities supplied it with electricity, water and sanitation within days of its construction.

The West Bank is partitioned into 3 areas as a result of the Oslo Accords in 1993. Under the Oslo Accords a newly formed Palestinian Authority was given control of area A and a degree of joint authority over Area B. Area C would remain under full Israeli Military control for a transitional period before being “gradually transferred” to the Palestinian Authority. Abu Ayl’s land is in Area C, which, according to The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, takes up 62% of the land area of the West Bank. Area C holds about 1/6^th of the West Bank’s population, the rest of which is concentrated in urban blocks in Area A and villages in Area B. Patches of Areas A and B are separated from one another by Area C’s strips of Israeli settlements and the roads which connect them. Life in area C is hard if you are not a settler; Save the Children recently published a report saying that the development of children in parts of area C is worse than anywhere in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza.

The Oslo Accords, which fragmented the West Bank into these areas was supposed to be an historic first step towards achieving Palestinian statehood and a lasting peace with Israel. It turned into a disaster for Palestinians. The transitional period and gradual transfer never materialised; instead the Accords marked the beginning of a period which  prompted the Second Intifada (which according to Israeli Human Rights organisation B’Tselem cost upwards of 6000 lives up to the end of 2008, almost 5000 of those Palestinian); the subsequent construction of an separation barrier, (85% of which is built illegally on Palestinian land and which has B’Tselem says has exasperated the impoverishment of many Palestinians in the West Bank) and  the transfer of almost 200,000 Israelis into area C , adding to the 100,000 already there and a further 200,000 who now  live in East Jerusalem. This created what Ariel Sharon called “facts on the ground”: Human and concrete obstacles to a unified, economically viable Palestinian state. Many Palestinians and Israelis see Oslo as having failed, but the fragmentation of the West Bank into area’s A, B and C (a part of the deal that was supposed to be temporary) has become a feature of life since.

Famers like Abu Ayl, who own land close to settlements and their outposts, are often barred from freely accessing their land. There is danger of being attacked by violent settlers. Rather than punishing the criminality of settlers, the Israeli authority chooses to punish the victims by restricting their movement.

Part of Abu Ayl’s modest income comes from the olive harvest. As a result of the vandalism, this year and in the years to come there will be no income from that.

Though working against the law, settlers who populate the outposts such as Havat Gil’ad advance the cause of the settlement project envisioned by Sharon and other Jewish Nationalists. They are the “facts on the ground” and are often violent, uncompromising, and allowed to attack, intimidate, frighten and hurt Palestinians by a military authority that is unwilling to hold them to same rigorous account as it does Palestinians.

Standing on the roof-top in the sunshine, I ask Abu Ayl if we can go to his land to see close up. He smiles ruefully and shakes his head:

“The settlers came into the village last night with soldiers; they walked around and went home...they want to show us they can go anywhere. We cannot go to my land; it is too dangerous for you.”

I protest: It’s his land; surely we can go and keep our distance?

 “Listen,” he said; “A few years ago they attacked my son, they broke his hand, fractured his skull, when they saw him again a year later, they asked him; what are you doing here? Last time we broke your hand and head; what do you think we will do to you next time?”

The Outpost: Illegal under international law, Illegal under Israeli law but with amenities provided by the Israeli authorities. Go figure.

As we stand in silence and look out again at the Havat Gil’ad Outpost, I wonder again at the similarities of this place to the Wild West; at the existence of such ugliness amidst such beauty and how those who claim to be chosen and guided by God can act in this way.

I work for Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) as an ecumenical accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this article are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer (QPSW) or the World Council of Churches. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including on a website) or distribute it further, please contact the QPSW Programme Manager at  teresap@quaker.org.uk

"For I Love the Bones of You..." The Israeli Prison System and it's effect on detainees and their families

Every Tuesday morning a line of plastic chairs is set outside the International Red Cross Offices in Tulkarm. A group sit and hold pictures of loved ones in front of them. These are the families of Palestinian prisoners. One of an Ecumenical Accompaniers tasks is to stand with them and offer our support. This morning we speak to the protesters as a camera crew from a local Palestinian News station conducts interviews. I speak with Hamed from the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, he translates the story of one mother who waited 1 ½ years to see her son in prison, when she got there the prison guards shackled her legs before letting her go in to see her son.

Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967 it is estimated that 650,000-800,000 Palestinians have been arrested and detained. Some estimate that 20% of the Palestinian population has been in prison. If you look at just the adult male population the figure rises to 40%.

The mass imprisonment of Palestinians is not without cause: The wave of violence known as the Second Intifada took place from 2000 onwards included suicide bombers and cost more than 600 Israeli lives. The uprising led the detention of more than 40,000 Palestinians, including 3000 children. Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlights Tulkarm as being one of the sources of the violence. Things have calmed now, but the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics estimates that over 7000 Palestinians are currently incarcerated.

Abdi Dalbah is a Palestinian activist and Journalist who works with Palestinians, Internationals and Israelis in opposing the occupation, he spend time in prison for political activism in the late 1990’s. I asked him how long he was in for: “Short time” he says “6 years”.

Abdi has been in prison twice, although he jokes that he was actually in 3 times, once the Israeli authorities raided his home only to be told be his family that he was already in jail. They found him where they had left him and promptly arrested him again. When I asked if he was ever tortured he answers, “Yes, of course”;

Abdi speaks with humour, patience and grace about his time inside but his eyes flicker as he recalls the ordeal. Some of the methods of torture used on Adbi included sleep deprivation, prolonged period spent in the cold, hanging by the hands, beating of the legs, tying of hands behind the back and arching the back over a stool until “you feel your back is broken”. He claims other methods of torture that he heard about include electric shock and spiking food with hallucinogenic drugs. “they also locked me in a toilet for days instead of cell, under law the Israelis are obliged to provide 3 meals a day and 4 cigarettes, so they brought me food to the toilet, I didn’t eat it.”

The Israeli authorities even keep corpses in prison, Abdi tells the story of a mother whose son (Mashoir Arori) died in prison in 1981. A few months ago, after 30 years of struggling with the Israeli prison system, his body was released. The mother’s relief was short lived, DNA tests of the skeleton revealed is wasn’t her son. A few months later, after yet more struggles with Israeli bureaucracy the true remains were finally returned to the village he grew up in. The Palestinian Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs knows of 300 corpse held in Israeli jails for no apparent reason.

A 2007 report by Israeli Human Rights organisation BT’selem claims that torture was still a regular occurrence in the Israeli prison system. They cite beating, painful binding, swearing and humiliation and denial of basic needs. In addition, 100s of Palestinians prisoners are currently held under an emergency procedure known as administrative detention. This allows the Israeli prison system hold suspects for concurrent periods of 6 months without trial or any knowledge of their alleged crimes. It has resulted in 1000s of Palestinians in jails for up to 5 years with no charges, and no knowledge of what they are in for. Both torture and administrative detention are very basic denials of human rights and contrary to international law. Plenty of evidence exists that they happen, but Israel simply isn’t held accountable by anyone.

The Israel Prison Service website describes itself as “ensuring the incarceration of prisoners and those remanded in custody in a secure and suitable environment, while respecting their dignity”. In fact it is discriminatory and willfully neglectful of the normal legal checks and balances which exist to protect prisoners in most Western democracies. This is due to the status of the West Bank as an occupied territory; military law rather than civil is applied. This allows for the detention of prisoners for smaller crimes for a much greater length of time, and allows the scandal of detention of minors to persist. While Palestinians who are arrested come from the Occupied West Bank or Gaza, most of Israeli detention centres are within Israel, this means that families trying to visit loved ones have to get a permit to travel from the West Bank to Israel, the same is true for lawyers looking to represent their clients. Not only does this cause massive problems of access for prisoners, it is also illegal under article 47 of the 4^th Geneva Convention.

For Palestinians, the Israeli prison system represents a tragedy on a national scale. A generation of Palestine’s men has been scared by their time in prison. In Tulkarm, the pictures of those still incarcerated hang alongside those of the martyrs almost everywhere you go. They look directly, defiantly at you, a younger version of themselves staring out from a fantasy world where they thought they might have freedom. Just as Israeli teenagers are brutalised by conscription, so it seems that Palestinians have their lives tainted by imprisonment. It is one of the many indignities they face under occupation. Communities mourn the absence of children, men, women and even the dead.