Hell in Hebron: Hebron Hills

Off the beaten path, you see the desert for miles

from Hebron Hills on this September day. If it weren’t for the military

outposts, the barbed wire and the checkpoints, it

would actually be quite peaceful here - a National

Geographic spread waiting to happen. The goats are

grazing nearby. Amidst the chaos and the hell,

there’s beauty here.

South of Jerusalem, past the checkpoints, this is the

area of the West Bank which Israel has basically taken

over. Our human rights delegation with Bustan,

Ta’ayush and others is making our way to Hebron in an

SUV. On the highway going south from Jerusalem you

can see the excesses of the settlement enterprise.

We head off the highway and on to a dirt road where

Mosa Abu Gibran, a member of the Fellahin minority

working the land today, invites us into his cave for

tea with his relatives. There is a rickety wooden fence and

the stones shaping the pathway. He tells us that near here

40 houses have been demolished and Apache helicopters

fly overhead to protect the nearby settlements. Two

days before, a settler knocked down tents in the

village. The security forces have come into villages

in Hebron Hills and closed off the caves and wells

where the Fellahin minority has lived for centuries.

Many, deprived of shelter and water and harassed by

settlers and Occupation forces, have been forced to

move from the land they have called home for

centuries.

He tells us

that he lives as if he’s second class and that he

lives in fear of not just security forces, but also

settlers. He says he is made to feel like an animal.

Near the settlement of Sausya, a Fellahin village

which

once had over 125 people residing there now has only

about 30 people. The military forces, set up to

protect the settlement on the hillside considered to

be on Holy Land, look down on the handful of people

who are left. Italian human rights activists with

"Operation Dove" have been sleeping here for weeks.

It wasn’t long ago that the Civil Administration

destroyed the village well by pushing a car into it

and poisoning it with zinc. The security forces

are still closing the many caves with stones along

Hebron Hills where the Fellahin have tradionally

lived. They even destroyed the donated solar panels

that had been set up by Bustan to provide some basic

level of power to the village for cooking and

lighting.

The Nuwaja family, who live in what is left of their

village, are now only 26. As they cook in the fire

nearby, having only their tents, carpets and memories,

they see the security forces with their guns

looking down at them from the settlement above

serving as a simple, metaphoric portrait of the

Occupation.

The entire Hebron region has been under fire for

decades. More recently, in 1999, security forces

evicted several hundred Palestinians from the region

after declaring it a live-fire area.

In January of 2003, Ta’ayush activists and members of

the Christian Peacemaker Teams who went to the South

Hebron Hills region to Palestinian farmers plow their

land were attacked by settlers. The settlers, armed

with guns and stones, beat the activists and pushed a

tractor down a valley and stole other equipment that

was on it.

In April of 2004, Israeli security forces destroyed 11

structures in south Hebron including shacks, tents and

public facilities erected by the British government’s

Department for International Development.

In September of 2004, the High Court of Justice

decided to uphold the injunction barring the IDF from

demolishing tents, caves and structures inhabited by

the Palestinians in the southern Hebron Hills near

Sausiya. The legal battle had been ongoing since

since Yair Har Sinai, had been murdered.

Later in September, Kim Lamberty and Chris Brown, two

members of the Christian Peacemakers Team, were

injured in Hebron Districts after being attacked by

settlers for escorting children from Tuba to al-Tuwani

elemenatary school. She received treatment for a

broken arm and he received broken arms and a punctured

lung.

In October, eight settlers with wooden sticks and

sling shots attacked Christian Peacemakers team member

Diana Zimmerman, Diane Janzen, an Operation Dove

member, and two Amnesty International employees,

Donatella Rovera and Maartje Houbrechts. The masked

settlers stole a video camera in the beating attack

and the Operation Dove member was treated in Beer

Sheva for a broken arm.

Recently, 60 Palestinians from Hebron Hills petitioned

the High Court of Justice against the government’s

intention to confiscate lands for construction of the

Separation Fence.

And so on it goes, nothing changes. To the

outsider, this is like embracing madness as a way of

life. People here are still fighting over the Promised Land in Hebron, the city of hell.