Hebron

Walter and I have taken several people around one city in particular in the West Bank, Hebron. This is from a day we took around a guy named Jacob that we met in our hostel. Jacob is an American who was about to join the IDF, but now he is not as sure.

These are the IDF observation towers on the road to Hebron from my "servees" (the word for a minibus/service taxi).

Welcome to Hebron, the Old City. 

Hebron is Muslim majority, and a rather conservative Muslim majority (you won't see a single woman out on the street without a hijab or niqab), but with growning numbers of settlers. The IDF actually would rather not have them in Hebron as they only create tensions, but as Israeli citizens, the IDF is obligated to protect them. To the right, you see Walter in the Old City, the trash, stones, and shoes above where Walter is standing were thrown by Jewish settlers living above the Palestinian store owners. The grate is what stops those things from hitting the Palestinians.

The shop owners here used to be numerous. In fact, Hebron's Old City market used to be the only one in all of Israel and the West Bank to rival Jerusalem's Old City market. But because of increasing Jewish settler presence in Hebron (despite the IDF's efforts to evict some), more and more stores are closed down by the IDF, their shops padlocked, welded shut, and then graffitied with a Jewish star or other symbols.

On this particular visit with Jacob, we talked to a shop-keeper for some time who explained how the IDF's actions had affected him personally. 

Here he is at the front of his frame shop showing us one of the rocks the settlers had thrown at him. He has a small pile of them that he displays at his store front.

Below, he shows where the IDF has welded shut most of the stores around him a few years ago.

Here we are back in his store again, having some tea. Jacob is the one standing up.

The floor was very wet, and he apologized for it and proceeded to explain the cause. When Jewish settlers moved in above his shop, they drilled holes in their floors into his shop and poured their sewage through these holes. 

Here is a bucket where he collects the water from a particularly drippy place and a shot of the floor that he has already been working on cleaning, but you can still see the used toilet paper.

He showed us that TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) had been there to document the damages. Here I am with the documentation in my lap:

And here is a closeup of the first page. TIPH also took pictures of his damages at the time of the incident (much worse that they are now, even though now, his entire roof is about to cave in...and he had us WALK on it in his attic to see the holes drilled through the concrete).

Much of his merchandise has been completely ruined by the water and sewage. But he did have in one of his frames an old picture from the Second Intifada, or "uprising," from 2000-2003 of one of his friends being carried away after he was shot and killed by the IDF in Hebron.

Here we see, from left to right, military netting that is strewn all over the place seemingly randomly (I can't imagine that it's strategic military covering anymore, I think soldiers just put it where they have to stand so that they get some shade), then an IDF look-out post on top of one of the Old City street corners, and then an IDF camera on a building corner (there are plenty of these in Hebron).

But what few stores in Hebron's once massive Old City market still remain open have a lot of great merchandise. Mostly their business is very, very bad. Hardly anyone comes to the Old City market. When Walter, Jacob, and I sit in our friend from last summer, Jamal's, fine woven things shop, I see only about 3 shoppers (tourists and locals) go past every 10 minutes. Below, Jamal is the one smoking and pouring us tea, and Walter and Jacob are in the foreground. There are several human rights groups present in Hebron, but just with few workers. The wallets below and to the right are from a women's rights group lead by a two vieled Palestinian locals.

So what's so special about Hebron? Why are there so many Jewish settlers who want to live in a city that isn't exactly welcoming them? See below, the Tomb of the Patriarchs. It holds the remains and the cenotaphs of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah. There's a Muslim side, the mosque, and a Jewish "side" (it's really more like a big tent filled with scholars and bookshelves and torahs), the synagogue. Each side is able to view the cenotaphs (which are in the middle) from windows on their respective sides.

This is the mosque side.

Here is Sarah's cenotaph (tomb, but her remains are actually underground) from the mosque side. The window to the right of the picture is an IDF watchpost.

This is Abraham's cenotaph from the Jewish side.

Here is a Hassidic Jew coming out of the Jewish side looking out over Hebron.

And below are several pictures of rows upon rows of stores that have been welded shut and emblazoned with Jewish stars, skulls, menorahs, fists, and a variety of other insignia. It almost looks like a reverse Kristalnacht. The metal boxed cages over the windows are there to shield inhabitants from rocks thrown by settlers. A very few Palestinian families have actually moved back into these apartments since I was here last summer. 

Next, here is a walk Walter, Jacob, and I took through a residential area which remains Palestinian. There is however, still rather disturbing graffiti from the settlers. 

Most of the bad graffiti and the store closings were making way for settlers, who in moving in and scattering Palestinian business and livliehood, made way for a new synagogue and civic center, pictured here. 

Here is the civic center.

Here is the synagoge on the right as Walter and Jacob look out over all of Hebron.

You will also see on the mountainside that some of the apartments and homes have a lighter layer of brick/concrete on top. The lighter, newer top layer that doesn't match the bottom is because a Jewish family somehow managed to get a Palestinian home and to build on top of it, later forcing the Palestinian family below them to leave for one reason or another.

Here is Walter speaking with a local Palestinian girl and her little brother. Settlers have thrown stones into her house. They asked us to take pictures and to show our friends, and she asked me to pray for them.