CPTnet
23 February 2007
HEBRON: Locked in the Ghetto

by Abigail Ozanne

>From 29 January--2 February, the team observed the Israeli army welding
doors and gates shut in the old city, strengthening walls and raising
fences. The soldiers told CPT that they were separating the Israeli
settlers and Palestinians. One soldier said that the army had arrested
twenty settlers a few days before for trying to break in to the old city.
Media and international attention has focused recently on the settler
problem in Hebron, specifically an instance of a settler woman harassing her
Palestinian neighbors (See 24 January 2007 CPTnet release, "HEBRON LETTERS:
Commentary on recent video showing Hebron settler woman harassing Abu Aisha
family.") The Israeli army's response to the violence appears to be locking
up the Palestinians even more tightly.

On a street near the CPT apartment, team members watched the army remove a
concrete barrier blocking an entrance to the old city from Shuhada Street.
Later in the day, they replaced the blocks with larger ones to make it more
difficult for people to break in or out. The next day, soldiers stopped
traffic in both directions through the souq while they welded a gate shut.
They also welded closed the back door to an apartment building.

One Palestinian woman said that she felt relieved by the army welding the
back door of her building shut. She often worries about her children going
out into the back garden, because settlers might attack. Her home is right
beside a settlement, and in the past, settlers have broken into the building
through that door.

Even as the army said that it is trying to separate Palestinians and
settlers for their safety, twenty soldiers guarded a group of Jewish
visitors who entered the old city on a tour. The soldiers forced
Palestinians to close their shops, and halt their work or shopping to wait
for the group to leave. When the visitors returned to their bus, the army
opened a large metal gate for them to exit the Old City and locked it behind
them.

On 2 February, two CPTers tried to exit the Old City through the Mosque
Gate. Most of the Palestinians just wanted to get to their homes outside
the Old City. The turnstiles were not working and they could not get out.
Soldiers at the gate told a group of nearly twenty Palestinians and CPTers
to leave by Gate 5. One of the soldiers at Gate 5 became angry, loaded his
gun, and pushed the Palestinians back at gunpoint. Nearly an hour after the
CPTers' first attempt to leave, the soldiers opened the Mosque Gate.

To see video from 2 February click here
<http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album202
<http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album202> > .

A map of the center of Hebron is at http://tinyurl.com/3xe8tz