Israel accelerates occupation of Hebron: ‘They can kill us at any moment with impunity’

“Do you see all that trash? The settlers throw it here every day,” says Islam Fajuri, a 38-year-old Palestinian, inside a house in Hebron’s Old City (in the south of the West Bank occupied by Israel). He looks up and points to a pile of cans, garbage bags and plastic caught in the bars of a courtyard roof threaded with wire. “The settlers have taken over the building next door, which used to be a guesthouse. Now they live right up against this Palestinian family’s home and have threatened and beaten them several times,” Fajuri continues. He also lives in the besieged, largely abandoned Old City and is friends with members of that household. They asked not to be identified for fear of further attacks by settlers.

“But where the main Jewish settlements are really visible is from the rooftop of this house. Let’s go up,” he suggests. Once on the roof, the view opens onto what is known as Hebron’s H2 area, where, according to the Palestinian Authority census, between 700 and 850 settlers live protected by thousands of Israeli soldiers. From the heights you can see their houses with gardens, their family cars and Israeli flags flying everywhere. A few meters away, in the opposite direction, another roof reveals two Israeli soldiers with rifles on watch duty.

It is the image of the Israeli occupation that this Palestinian city has endured for decades, the object of Jewish nationalist claims tied to what Judaism calls the Tomb of the Patriarchs and what Islam calls the Ibrahami Mosque. The move has been accelerated by some of Benjamin Netanyahu’s most hard-line ministers, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. The latest step comes as the legislative term nears its end: the suspension of the 1997 Hebron Accords.

Signed, incidentally, by Netanyahu himself — who at the time was also Israel’s prime minister, as he is now — and by the then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as part of the Oslo Accords, the agreement stipulated that Israel should withdraw its troops from 80% of Hebron so that the Palestinian Authority police could assume control. That area became known as H1, where about 210,000 Palestinians live, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Statistics Office.

The remaining 20% of the territory, home to roughly 50,000 Palestinians and including the Ibrahami Mosque, remained under Israeli army control, although certain powers (such as urban planning) were in Palestinian hands: that is the H2 zone visible from the roof of Fajuri’s friends’ house.

In practice, Israel never fully respected that agreement, and increasingly radical settler families have moved into the city. They can be seen in the Old City — which Palestinians are often barred from entering on many Saturdays during the sabbat — escorted by Israeli soldiers. Meanwhile, restrictions have been applied to Palestinians seeking access to the Ibrahami Mosque, which is under Israeli control. It can only be reached by passing through a checkpoint.

On June 16, Smotrich — who himself lives in the West Bank as a settler in open violation of international law — wrote on X: “I cancelled the Hebron agreement.” The importance of this decision, he said, lies in that many authorities in Hebron and the holy sites, including the Tomb of the Patriarchs, “are no longer in the hands of the terrorist municipality of Hebron, but again become the exclusive responsibility of the State of Israel.”

For Palestinian activist Issa Amro, 48, who has spent his life fighting and documenting the occupation of his hometown, the most worrying aspect of breaking the 1997 accords is that Hebron’s municipal government, now run by the Palestinian Authority, will no longer have jurisdiction over construction and urban planning in H2.

Living in fear

“In the end, this means they annex our land without us. When Smotrich talks about cancelling the accords he means H2, where the agreement specified that the Palestinian Authority retained building and planning powers. Life is already very difficult for the Palestinians living in that area. Sometimes I have to pass up to three security checkpoints to get to my home. And if before we already suffered constant power cuts, and Smotrich reduced our water access by 40%, who will provide services for us if Hebron municipality’s authority over that area is restricted?” he laments.

Amro warns that the consequences of Smotrich’s move — which Netanyahu’s Cabinet approved months ago and announced officially a few weeks ago — are already being felt: “Last week he already announced the creation of a new settlement in the Old City. They are bringing in more settlers all the time. They don’t care about destroying the history of our urban core, which is listed as [UNESCO] intangible cultural heritage. Now they even want to build dormitory blocks for the more than 200 Jews who study at the yeshivá [religious study center].”

He became an activist when Israel closed Hebron University, where he had studied as a young man, and he acknowledges that after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks — which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people in Israeli territory — assaults by settlers and soldiers have skyrocketed.

“There are more armed settlers and more attacks. Since 2023 I have put up more bars and walls at my house. I watch constantly out the window because settlers live just a few meters from me. Somehow we have internalized that they can kill us at any moment with total impunity,” he adds.

Constant raids

The interview takes place in a café in the H1 sector farthest from the Old City, but it is still battered by the Israeli army. “Every day there are raids by the Israeli army. They enter, break into homes and arrest Palestinians. It’s what the army calls code 0/0: when it calls the Palestinian police and asks them to clear the whole city so the army can enter without restrictions,” he explains.

As Amro speaks, a neighbor, Mohamed (a fictitious name to protect his identity), 35, approaches to greet him. “I’m not surprised the accords were canceled. It was predictable. They are the fruit of what was sown in the past. And now it will increase Israel’s control over the city on many levels: permits, construction... Israel has always treated Palestinians as temporary residents and in this city that feeling is stronger than ever,” he criticizes.

Mohamed survives on a salary of 1,400 shekels (€400) from his job in a bar. “I worked for many years in a bar in Tel Aviv, but since October 2023 Israel has revoked work permits for West Bank Palestinians. I can’t go there anymore unless I risk illegally crossing the wall. And I don’t want to be killed or enter illegally,” he says.

He is also clear about the fact that he does not want to leave his land despite the deep sadness that overwhelms him. “You can see it on our faces: there is a high level of depression. You wake up each day and ask yourself: what can I do today? I speak Hebrew and hear Israelis saying all the time: ‘This city will return to the Jews.’”

What is happening in Hebron reflects the colonial plans the Israeli government has for the rest of the West Bank, territory from which it has been steadily seizing land. In early April, Netanyahu’s government secretly approved the establishment of 34 new settlements from north to south in the occupied Palestinian territory, a move denounced in a report by NGO Peace Now and reported by several Israeli outlets.

“All Israeli governments have defended our fundamental right to live in Judea and Samaria, the historic cradle of the Jewish people,” said Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, a few weeks ago at a meeting with the European commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Šuic.

And that is exactly what activist Amro denounces: “This is not about one particular government, it’s about the Israeli system. No one has peace with Palestine on their political agenda.”

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