Hebron -"Welcome to evil"

”Welcome to evil”

These were the words used by a shop keeper in the Souk to greet me in Hebron. Weapons are nothing uncommon on the West Bank. Neither is to get a machine gun pointed straight at your chest, when I am in the old town of Hebron. Yet the weekly settler tour, where a group of approximately 80 people get a guided historical tour of old Hebron, heavily guarded by the Israeli military, is more extreme than I am used to.

Our job is to give protective presence, so that the Palestinians living in the area are not harassed. During the tour, a Palestinian man get his door kicked in, and six Israeli soldiers march in to his home, in full combat gear to secure the area in advance for the settler tour. He says this happen daily, and that the family of 14 is often forced to stay all in one room for several hours. To see streets sealed off, with soldiers storming playgrounds, guards on the roof tops and doors kicked in; it all feels like something out of a movie.

“It’s like we are still under siege” an old woman says, sitting outside on a bench.  Still everything remains calm, the soldiers, the weapons, the occupation, it has all become a part of normality. Even for me, living in Bethlehem, I was expecting something else, more extreme. I realize the difference between Hebron and other places on the West Bank, is not so much in the events but rather the difference is in regard to Hebron being a compact area, where all the problems are condensed, settlers, soldiers and Palestinians living side by side.

 Hebron is the biggest Palestinian city on the West Bank, it has few tourists and the wall is not an obvious part of everyday life. There are 6000 Israelis living in settlements outside of the city, illegal according to international law. Another 600 live in settlements inside Hebron, in an area called H2, which is overlapping with Palestinian houses, where 30 000 Palestinians live. Most of the settlements have started with Israelis overtaking apartments of Palestinian houses, forcing the Palestinian owners to live in smaller areas, and eventually often choosing to leave their homes rather than living under the straining conditions.  The Israeli military is present to protect the settlers, and have sealed off streets such as Shuhada street, created checkpoints to control who is coming into the area, and watchtowers around and on top of the houses, to ensure their presence is known.

The Israeli military control the area, and even school children’s backpacks are searched, at Checkpoint 56 controlling the entrance to Shuhada street. Three boys are standing facing the wall, their arms and legs spread, being body searched by one soldier, whilst the other is pointing his gun at their backs. They stand there, their arms and legs spread, silently waiting for the soldiers to check their id papers with their commander.

Still everything remains calm, normal.

Welcome to Hebron, or “welcome to evil”.