Although the Arabic and Hebrew names for the holy city of Hebron means “friend” - al-Khalil and Hevron - Israel’s pro-settler policies forced thousands of Palestinians to leave the town.
Hebron was the first West Bank town Jews settled in after Palestinian territories were seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. And it was the last town from which Israeli occupation forces redeployed as a result of the Oslo accords signed in 1997 between then Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Under the agreement, the Palestinians gained control over 80% of the Palestinian town, known as H1. The remaining 20%, or H2, is controlled by Israeli occupation forces who protect several hundred Jewish settlers living in the centre of Hebron.
The redeployment was lauded at the time as a victory for the peace process. But the fact is that it left thousands of Palestinians stranded in Israeli-occupied Hebron, which is surrounded with checkpoints, road blocks and military barriers.
About 500 Jewish settlers, who consider living in Hebron as a biblical birthright, are housed in several enclaves built since 1980 in the heart of the city, home to 115,000 Palestinians.
Israel effectively expropriated Hebron's centre from the Palestinians in an effort to protect the settlers and expel the Palestinians in the second-largest city in the occupied West Bank, according to a new report by two Israeli human rights groups.
"The policy of separation founded on ethnic criteria (between Jews and Arabs) has caused a massive exodus of Palestinians from Hebron's city centre," B'Tselem and Israel Civil Rights Association said.
The 120-page report also accused Israeli occupation forces of committing acts of "routine and violent harassment" against Palestinians, such as frequent curfews, denial of access to main streets and setting up security posts in Palestinian homes.
Moreover, Israeli authorities turn a blind eye to settler attacks, including beatings, poisoning a water well and the cutting down of trees. Troops also "as a rule refrain from protecting the Palestinian residents from attacks by settlers", the rights groups said.
"Dozens of settlers attacked my house at once, and they burned things inside the house," the report quoted former resident Mufid Sharabati as saying.
"We called the Israeli police and the army, but nobody helped us."
It’s worth mentioning that Jewish settlers in Hebron are the most violent settlers in the West Bank. They routinely attack Palestinians in an effort to force them to leave. The most well-known crime committed against Palestinians in the city was in 1994, when Baruch Goldstein, a U.S.-born doctor, burst into the Abraham Mosque and shot dead 29 Arabs at prayer before being beaten to death. Ironically, Jewish settlers mourned Goldstein as a saint, establishing a shrine to him that was removed by the Israeli government only in 1999.
This poisonous climate left thousands of Palestinians with no option but to leave.
According to the rights groups’ report, Hebron was traditionally the commercial centre for the entire southern West Bank. But Israeli authorities "have made the entire Palestinian population pay the price for protecting Israeli settlement in the city (by creating) legal and physical segregation between the Israeli settlers and the Palestinian majority."
More than 40 percent of Palestinian homes in Hebron’s center have been abandoned by their occupants, the majority of whom have been forced to leave after the Palestinian intifada or uprising started in September 2000. In addition, 77 percent of Palestinian businesses or shops had been shut, nearly a quarter of them have been forced to close by Israeli military orders, the report said.
"They (Israelis) created conditions that made the Palestinians move," said Sarit Michaeli, a Betselem spokeswoman, accusing Israel of committing a war crime by violating the Geneva Convention prohibiting forced transfer.
"The army can't now say that they didn't know this was going to happen... Israeli actions, which are based on a policy preferring the settlers' interests, have turned Hebron's city centre into a ghost town," Michaeli said.
"Israel contends that it is impossible to ensure the safety of the settlers without separating Palestinians and Israelis in the city, and without infringing on the basic rights of the Palestinian residents.”
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