Israeli Occupation Forces Deny Muslims Right to Pray

On Friday, October 24, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) denied over 100 Palestinian Muslims the right to pray Duhr - or noon prayer - at the Al Ibrahimi Mosque in Al Khalil.

Friday, or Juma'ah in Arabic, is the holiest day of the week in Islam. And Duhr is among the most popular times to pray communally at Al Ibrahimi, known by Jews as the "Tomb of the Patriarchs," the place where Abraham, Sarah, and other important figures from Scripture are buried. Al Ibrahimi Mosque is also the place where, in 1994, U.S.-born Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein opened fire on 800 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and killed 29 people. Goldstein is buried in the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba, where a plaque near his gravesite reads, “To the holy Baruch Goldstein, who gave his life for the Jewish people, the Torah, and the land of Israel.” This grave is a site of pilgrimage for many settlers, and is where Ben-Gvir took his future wife on their first date.

Every Friday in Al Khalil, starting about 45 minutes before the Muslim call to prayer, worshippers line up at the military checkpoint that regulates, and often bars, access to the mosque for Palestinians in the city, both those who live inside and outside the restricted area. For a Palestinian, going through the checkpoint consists of waiting in a large cage-like structure, heavily monitored by multiple cameras, in order to wait to be allowed through a large metallic turn style. Next, they must proceed through a metal detector and show their IDs to the soldier behind the plexiglass box before walking by several other heavily armed soldiers barking orders. All of this is done in order to pray.

At times, walking through the checkpoint goes relatively smoothly. More often, Palestinians tell us, there are numerous delays and even closures, blocking access to the mosque, to shops, to homes, and to everyday life.

On this particular Friday, at least 25 worshippers had lined up by 11:50 for the 12:24 prayer. For no given reason, the Israeli soldiers were only allowing in 3-5 people every 2 minutes - not nearly quickly enough to enable the quickly growing number of worshippers who continued to line up to get to prayer on time. By 12:34, 10 minutes after prayer had begun, at least 96 worshippers were still waiting to be let through the checkpoint; at least 10 had seen the line and left; and at least 4 had been turned away by soldiers. When we asked various Palestinians why the soldiers were holding up the line that day, they all replied with some version of, "They do this all the time. We are used to it. They do whatever they want. They don't need to give a reason."

Proving that the holdup had nothing to do with any need for security, at 12:45, 20 minutes after prayer was over, the soldiers opened the side gate and allowed all 96 Palestinian worshippers through the checkpoint at once. Nobody had to walk through a metal detector. Nobody had to show ID. But all had missed prayer time.

Just another way to make life under occupation as unbearable as possible.

Activism on the Edge

 "Hello, they beat this man and took him away for no reason. We don't know where they took him."

"It is the eighth day of the curfew and I am not allowed out of my house. They don't even allow us to get babies' milk, bread, or diapers."

"No one went to school. This is terrible for the kids."

"The soldiers are here at my house. They are taking my car."

These are just some of the messages we regularly receive from Arej (pronounced Areej) Abdel Karim Al-Jabari, a Palestinian mother of nine and social activist who lives in the Wadi Al-Hussein neighborhood of Hebron - the only Palestinian city with an illegal Israeli settlement in the middle of it. Arej lives on the border between of an Israeli-controlled territory and a Palestinian one. Often confined to her house by the frequent curfews imposed on her Palestinian neighborhood by the Israeli military, Arej has been committed since 2007 to assisting her neighbors through the documentation of the "crimes of the occupation," letting the world know of the horrific conditions under which Palestinians in Hebron are forced to live.

"What makes me photograph is the injustice that the people - the children and the women - are exposed to," she says.

Hebron is a sacred place to both Muslims and Jews, who believe it to be the burial place of Abraham and other important figures from Scripture. Due to its religious significance, Hebron has become a stronghold for the religious extremists within the illegal Israeli settler movement, who believe that the Jewish people have a divine right to control the West Bank, and who believe that a "Jewish return to Hebron is historical justice."

Arej has lived in her house since 1999, just two years after Israel and the PLO signed the Hebron Protocol, dividing her city - the second largest in the West Bank - into three distinct areas. Area H1 comprises 80% of the city and is under Palestinian civil and security control; Area H2, under Israeli military control, comprises 20% of the city and includes the entire Old City of Hebron, once the commercial center for the entire West Bank. 40,000 Palestinians still live in H2, and are subject to its exceptionally complicated fragmentation through the presence of military checkpoints, barbed wire, concrete barriers, surveillance cameras, military zones, and illegal Israeli settlements. Arej lives on the border between H1 and H2.

Still yet a third section of Hebron is referred to as the "restricted area," where 700 Israeli settlers live illegally inside the city. Here, Palestinian residents are forbidden from driving or even walking on certain roads. The presence of the Restricted Area, heavily guarded by numerous checkpoints, military watchtowers, and soldiers, makes movement in the entire city of Hebron extremely arduous for its residents. What was once a 5-minute walk from one side of the restricted area to the other now requires a 30-minute taxi ride around. As a result of such restrictions on movement and commerce, as well as extreme military repression and settler violence, thousands of Palestinian residents have lost their source of income and have either moved away from Hebron or are living in poverty.

Still, 40,000 Palestinians, as an act of nonviolent resistance to their own ethnic cleansing, remain in H2. Through their steadfast refusal to leave, these Palestinians have prevented the 700 Israeli settlers in the Old City illegally from taking over the entire area.

And yet, such a form of resistance takes a toll. Palestinians in the Old City are subject to daily marches of heavily armed soldiers; each week, dozens of soldiers clear the streets of Palestinians in order to make way for Jewish visitors from around the world to tour the city they believe will soon be entirely theirs. For the last two years, Areej has been confined to her house from Thursday night to Sunday morning by an Israeli military-imposed curfew. "This means," she says, "that residents are in their homes and it is forbidden to open the doors and windows."

Last week, due to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, the Israeli military would not allow Areej or any of her neighbors to leave their houses for eight full days. "This is in addition," she adds, "to the assault on residents in their homes, searching them and beating them." Two weeks ago, they confiscated her car due to "security reasons." Such abuse, she tells us, has dramatically increased since October 2023.

Frequently, Areej photographs the military harassing and detaining Palestinian men outside of her home. "They detain them for no reason and torture them for eight hours," she tells us.

From her window, Areej documents this harassment with her camera and posts the videos on her Facebook and TikTok pages. While most of her followers are Palestinian, she also reaches people in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Arej feels strongly about keeping the hope of her community alive during a time when spirits could be so easily broken. For several years, she has run month-long knitting circles for women out of her house. "To relieve some of the pressure," she says. Especially for "mothers who see their children being tortured." Using yarn donated from various locations, Arej teaches the women to knit baby blankets, sweaters, scarves, and various other necessary items.

Arej also runs a summer camp for children, providing activities and food during a time when there is not much else for children to do. The children send gift packages down to other children in Masafer Yatta - the South Hebron Hills - who are actively being pushed off their land.

When asked what she wishes people in other countries knew about life under occupation, and how people abroad can support her work, she says, "I hope that the international community can stand by me and support the activities I do for women and children. I want friends to know how we suffer, to watch my documentation videos, see my work for children, and help complete my mission."

"There is an impossible dream for women," she adds, "which is to go and perform Umrah [an Islamic pilgrimage] in Saudia Arabia. They want to go pray, but the financial amount is large. I hope that those who care about them will help them achieve their only dream." She also hopes that another car will come her way so that she can cease being confined to her house and once again be a support to the rest of her neighborhood.

Arej says that she has become a target of soldiers because they know that she "films and exposes their crimes" and that they are "waiting to arrest me at any moment."

"But I am strong and they will not defeat me."

To follow Arej and her work, or to donate:

TikTok handle is @m12345677777777777777 (https://www.tiktok.com/@m12345677777777777777)

Instagram: @areejjabari6 (https://www.instagram.com/areejjabari6)

A Fraught and Beautiful Pilgrimage

 Since we have been on the ground, our team of four has been split in half, serving at two very different sites, experiencing different faces of the same genocide. Two have been in Masafer Yatta, the South Hebron Hills, staying with families who are under daily threat of expulsion, forced removal, and vicious attacks by illegal Israeli settlers. That team sleeps in tents, simple one room houses, or caves at night and keeps watch over the hills by day, looking out for possible attacks or theft of livestock.

The other two have been assigned to Al Khalil, the city of Hebron, where we have been asked to monitor checkpoints and be present during the weekly settler incursions into the city. This team has also been asked to participate in some of the ongoing month-long olive harvest, traveling to various locations around the West Bank where villages are organizing large group harvests in order to support families who are vulnerable to attacks (which is pretty much everybody now).

Wanting to reunite and reconnect with each other and see some of the sites of Palestine, our team recently took a two-day break together to Nazareth and Taybeh. Nazareth, while technically inside the nation-state of Israel (which many Palestinians refer to as '48 - the year that much of Palestine was stolen and taken over by settler colonialists) is still very much a Palestinian town. It's just that the Palestinians here - 20% Christian and 80% Muslim - also have Israeli citizenship. According to the Gospels, Nazareth is the place where the angel Gabriel asked Mary if she would be willing to be the mother of God. It is the place where Mary, herself living under the occupation of an outside colonizing force, said, "yes." 

To get to Nazareth and to visit the Sea of Galilee, our Palestinian friend recommended that we rent a car, which we did. Half of our team picked up the car in Jerusalem and drove to Ramallah to meet the other half - an enormous lesson in the occupation's tactic of restriction of movement. Though Ramallah is only 10 miles away from Jerusalem, it took our team 3 hours and many frustrated attempts at navigating roads closed by military checkpoints and other military roadblocks to get there. Neither google maps or the Israeli app "Waze" would navigate us inside the Palestinian civilian-controlled Areas A or B, and so we had to rely on calling Palestinian friends and getting various pieces of advice before finally driving through the massive and intimidating Qalandia checkpoint. The next morning, thinking we had solved the issue, we attempted to leave Ramallah (area A) and travel to the Israeli controlled territory toward Nazareth. Once again, it took us 2 hours just to leave the Palestinian city, encountering more road closures and checkpoints enforced by the Israeli military.

We were lucky. As internationals in a rental car, we had the yellow "Israeli-only" license plates, basically a free ticket to travel through checkpoints in a special, speedier lane. Palestinians with green and white license plates are under much more scrutiny when traveling into Jerusalem; and most Palestinians are not allowed into Jerusalem at all, though it is their capital and only mere miles away.

Once inside '48, we drove along modern highways lined with both Israeli and U.S. flags - the close relationship of these colonizing forces on display for all to see. We felt relief entering the more Palestinian town of Nazareth, exploring the Church of the Annunciation, and eating a lunch of falafel, hummus, bread, and veggies before putting our bags down at a quaint hostel inside the Old City. After a nap, we headed out to the Mount of Beatitudes where we drank wine and read aloud the Sermon on the Mount before traveling to the Sea of Galilee. There, we reveled in a gorgeous waterfall and sat on the rocks while noticing Palestinian men nearby fished from the same body of water where Jesus called his disciples.

 

The next day, Monday, was a joyous one for so many. With the signing of the peace deal, 20 living Israeli hostages were released from captivity in Gaza, and the bodies of those hostages who had been killed (most by Israeli fire) began to be released as well. In turn, 1700 Gazans who had been kidnapped by the Israeli military were also released and reunited with their families, as well as 250 Palestinian political prisoners. Sadly, 150 of those released were immediately deported to other countries and not allowed to reunite with their loved ones.

We traveled back into the West Bank to the Christian village of Taybeh (an Arabic word meaning good or delicious), to visit the only craft brewery in the Middle East. It was easier to get back into the West Bank this time, as we were driving through Area C. (Fully controlled by the Israeli military, Area C constitutes 60% of the West Bank and is likely to be annexed by Israel soon). Still, the Israeli app "Waze" would only direct us to the outskirts of the village, where we encountered a huge red sign warning us that entering a Palestinians village would be "Dangerous" to our lives (example pic here).

We got to spend a few hours at the brewery, sipping different types of delicious beer and enjoying the stunning view. We got a tour by the owner, Madees, and listened to the story about her Palestinian father who moved back from Boston to Taybeh after the Oslo Accords of 1994 to start a family business, believing peace was on its way. We learned that each year since 2005, Taybeh Brewery has hosted an Octoberfest Weekend with live music, food, beer, and fellowship.

For almost twenty years, Octoberfest in Taybeh was a huge event, attended by people from all around the West Bank and a boost to the local economy. Unfortunately, since the start of the war in Gaza two years ago, Octoberfest has been cancelled. "People don't feel like celebrating right now," said Madees. "Also, with security so tight, people have lost their jobs and don't have the money."

Though we had been planning to move on to Ramallah that night in order to be closer to the car rental return, we learned that there were extra road closures and settler attacks on the roads due to the prisoner release. And so after wandering around Taybeh, we decided to stay the night at a guesthouse and go to Monday evening mass, having missed it the morning before due to our delays.

Unfortunately, the road closures still had a huge impact on our evening. The owner of our guest house - unbeknownst to us - had been working in Ramallah that day and was stuck for 2 hours at a checkpoint, unable to return to Taybeh until 8 pm to get our rooms ready. Unsure of what to do after Mass, we were so grateful to be invited by two Palestinian women (neighbors, one of them a relative of our guest house owner) to their home for tea while we waited.

One of the women had lived in Australia for 35 years with her husband, but had recently moved home to Taybeh to retire. "See how they treat us here?" she asked. "Nobody in the whole world would stand to be treated this way." When I asked her whether she ever considered returning to Australia or to another country where one of her three children lived she immediately replied, "Never. This is my home."

We met Abu Jaber (name changed for safety), the husband of the other woman and the owner of the house where we had tea. Abu Jaber is originally from Gaza, and was watching on his TV news of the ceasefire and the joyous reunion of political prisoners with their families in Ramallah. Noting this, I asked him if he still had family in Gaza. "Yes," he replied. "Is your family OK?" I asked. "Nobody in Gaza is OK," he replied.

When the owner of our guesthouse finally arrived, he joined us for tea before taking us to his newly completed guest house where he brought us to our rooms for the night. We were the first guests! Since the start of the war, Abed's (name changed for safety) employment had decreased from full to part time. And so he spent his free time fixing up his grandfather's old house in the beautiful village of Taybeh. It was stunning and welcoming. He and his wife cooked us an incredible, traditional Palestinian meal of maqluba, using herbs from their garden. We awoke to a gorgeous spread of bread, hummus, yogurt, beans, cucumbers, olive oil, za'tar, coffee, and eggs from their hens - a delightful meal to send us on our way back to our placements for our remaining two weeks.

Nowhere on earth have I experienced such amazing hospitality or stayed in such beautiful hostels as in Palestine. And yet, their economy is struggling because nobody is visiting. Israelis tell the world that it is dangerous to enter a Palestinian town or village, though it is only dangerous because they make Israelis make it so.

If you ever feel so inclined, I highly recommend you to visit. My prayer is that Christians from around the world travel here in such droves that it becomes impossible for Israel to continue to lie about the reality of this oppressive occupation. My prayer is that Christians from around the world travel here so often that it becomes normal for us to together marvel at the beauty and the deep Christian history of this Palestinian place. My prayer is that Christians from around the world stand in solidarity with their Palestinian sisters and brothers and demand an immediate end to Israel's brutal ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

 

Sumud: A Steadfast Resistance

 The Palestinian people say the most important word to them is "sumud." It means steadfastness, perseverance, resilience, or "we are going to stay, this is our land." It can mean actions, demonstrations, protests, legal battles, or other confrontations. Entire books have been written about "sumud."

There is, though, another word I hear quite often here that could be spelled "kool yom," or "everyday." On a handful of occasions someone will show you a video of settlers, in Arabic "mustawtan", harassing, attacking, and terrorizing their family home and after three or four videos simply say "everyday." They'll proudly point out their mother, their brothers, their cousin, their father, and how they resist these harassments from settlers and military (mostly by insisting on living their life and caring for their family). They'll slightly grin as they show you a video of their mother cooking bread while a settler stares down at them. "How often does this happen?" we ask. The response: "Everyday." A settler will herd sheep trespassing on Palestinian land past a burnt car through gates the settlers probably cut. The owner of the house will show you a video of settlers setting a car on fire and say "everyday." They continue, "The settlers, the military, they don't want peace they want Palestine. Why should we leave? My family has been here for 3,000 years." Those last two words come out with such a strident, yet gentle, staccato that you have no trouble believing they could recall ever single day and what happened over the past 3,000 years. Everyday.

But, of course, not every single day is the same. Some days are cliffs. Some days the settler encroachment reaches a water line or settlers bulldoze the power lines. Some days they burn cars. They trespass and cut an olive tree (or the military comes and cuts 150). With the wave of a hand the occupational forces turn your land into a closed military zone. Another hand the occupation can demolish homes. The occupation murders people with the guns they get from the United States. Everyday the same project is being brought forth, the project of enclosure and land theft. The project of settler colonialism. The everyday terror is part of the centrality of violence to capitalism (or/and the US-Israel Zionist project). Ali Kadri, building off of Rosa Luxembourg, calls this "accumulation by waste." In order to get land, resources, and political control at is most profitable (not always cheapest) rate you must "beat up" the community living there, and make beating them up a market to profit off of. You must make the everyday filled with enough terror people feel no choice but to leave.

But everyday will also be filled acts of resistance and "sumud." They will record the settler violence and harassment. They'll call their neighbors to warn them. they'll insist on having strong family ties. They'll resist. They'll be human. Everyday.

Daily Indignities, Daily Injustices

 Sadly, it is just another day. Just another day of monitoring Checkpoint 56 to see whether Palestinian children and teachers are allowed by Israeli soldiers to get to school in the morning and home in the afternoon. Just another day of watching boys and girls in their own hometown, laughing and carrying backpacks full of books, suffer the regular indignity of passing in and out of a heavily militarized, barricaded, monstrous gate, at times being stopped and questioned by heavily armed soldiers who hold their fate in their hands. Somebody shared with me their old photos of checkpoints in Hebron since taking a picture of this scene would get me immediately deported, so while the words are mine, the photos are not my own.

 

School in Hebron - or Al Khalil, as Palestinians call it - is currently only in session three days a week due to lack of funding to pay teachers. Last week, because of anticipated violence by illegal Israeli settlers and the soldiers who protect them, Palestinian schools in Al Khalil were cancelled. Next week, school may be cancelled again due to a teachers' strike. The checkpoints are frequently closed by Israeli military for random reasons. Going to school is definitely not a daily or even regular occurrence for children in Al Khalil.

As we watch the checkpoint, we notice we are being watched by at least five cameras and two soldiers with their fingers on the triggers of their automatic weapons on the rooves above us. Children - sometimes a dozen at a time - are excited to see foreigners in a place where many assume they have been abandoned by the outside world. Seemingly unfazed by the backdrop of violence, they surround us and chat with us excitedly, using the little English they remember from school: "Where are you from?" they ask over and over again. "What is your name?"

We answer back in the little broken Arabic we know. "How old are you?" "What is your name?" we respond. For the most part, the children - ranging in age from 2 to 12 - are delighted by our banter. They ask whether we love Israel or Palestine. "We love Palestine!" we say, and the children are visibly relieved, assured now that we will not attack them. One of them announces with all seriousness, "We don't love Israel because Israel kills children."

Thinking we are done for the day, grateful that there were no major incidents at either the morning or afternoon checkpoint watch, we go and have tea and sage - chai wa maramiya - at a local, mostly empty, coffee shop. Discussing which produce we'll purchase at the local market, we begin the 40-minute walk home.

Suddenly, six Israeli soldiers all armed with live ammunition - one carrying what appears to be a rocket-propelled grenade launcher on his back and another a machine gun - march out of the military base gate and begin parading menacingly down the Palestinian streets of the Old City. They stop at least three Palestinian cars at random, checking IDs and searching trunks. We follow them and film as the soldiers make a loop around the entire market, making their presence known through intimidation and rude remarks.

While we are horrified at this display of violence and abuse, we notice that the local Palestinians do not seem phased. Children continue riding their bikes near the soldiers. Couples continue to shop together for produce. Drivers shut the trunks of their cars after they are searched and drive away.

After about 20 minutes, the soldiers return to the Israeli military base located across the street from the shops of some of our friends. We go to check on them, to see if they are OK. It seems we are more shaken than they are. While they have gathered in our friend's shop to wait out the incident, they are not shocked or even surprised. Ready to move on with their day, they hastily offer us their business card and offer for us to come visit. "This is what we go through every day," they seem to say. Just another day.

Reflection

 We are all relieved that Oct 7th passed relatively uneventfully. Compared to when I was last here, over 25 years ago, Palestinians are less likely to greet each other with the traditional greetings, expressions of peace and the goodness of the day. The truth is the last two years have been especially difficult, often lacking in peace and goodness. Everyone here in the West Bank has friends and relatives in Gaza, where a classroom full of children have been exterminated by Israel, with US weapons, every single day for the last two years. For the anniversary, I started reading some of the names of the 18.5k children killed. I got through 5%, just over 900 names. I invite you to read 50 of them. Spain has recently found the courage to stop arming Israel, but as everyone says here, the US is the mother of Israel, so I don't expect our own government to follow suit.

I write from the Southern Hebron Hills, where I am taking "a night in" at the international volunteer flat after staying with five different Palestinian families (sleeping in their main room -- a living room/dining room/bedroom/den/study all rolled into one -- on thin foam mats on the floor with several family members) over the last six nights. The families are all scared of the ever increasing, and increasingly violent, settler attacks from illegal Israeli outposts, and have requested international protective presence. These attacks can range from trespassing to property damage to lynching, as the illegal settlers aim to make clear that they want these last holdouts of tiny villages to be wiped out, depopulated, like so many others before them, so they can take the land. This article from a few years ago summarizes the situation well.

We have played frisbee and soccer with kids, had grandmas correct our Arabic, eaten lots of good bread and olive oil, and kept close watch on the hills for any settlers looking to attack. We record and photograph these (thankfully so far just trespassing on private Palestinian owned land during our assignments), to keep track of these incursions.

The 2025 Oscar winning film No Other Land is about this area, and though it's hard to find in the US, I strongly recommend seeing it. It makes the same point as Sunday's first reading from Habbakuk -- patience and steadfastness to the vision (samud in Arabic): "For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late." This and the reading from Amos our first Sunday here have been especially poignant.

The olive harvest is just beginning, which is a time people go back home, like we would for Thanksgiving, in order to help their families and be together. We may get to participate in that, which again has become increasingly fraught as a time of potential violence. The night before last 150 trees were uprooted by the army to make way for an outpost in Umm al-Kheir, where one of the producers of the aforementioned film was murdered by a settler three months ago, just meters from where the trees were just uprooted.

The Palestinian people are strong but this relentless push to drive them off their land is exhausting and stressful. The news of the ceasefire talks are welcome but also make people nervous, as it could also come with more localized violence. Still, sitting on a mat on a concrete floor, watching the news with a simple shepherding family, I am amazed how knowledgeable and informed they are. "This village is old and beautiful," I said in my hesitant Arabic. Ali, the shepherd grandfather, simply nodded.

Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4

How long, O LORD?  I cry for help
 but you do not listen!
 I cry out to you, "Violence!"
 but you do not intervene.
 Why do you let me see ruin;
 why must I look at misery?
 Destruction and violence are before me;
 there is strife, and clamorous discord.
 Then the LORD answered me and said:
 Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets,
 so that one can read it readily.
 For the vision still has its time,
 presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint;
 if it delays, wait for it,
 it will surely come, it will not be late.
 The rash one has no integrity;
 but the just one, because of his faith, shall live.

Rooted in History, Al-Khalil Under Attack

 Standing in the center of the shop in the Old City of Hebron, known as Al-Khalil to Palestinians, stands a 300-year old sesame press. Hisham, the shop owner, lights up when we ask him to talk about its history. Hisham shows us a photo from when the press was in use and operated by camels, and points out the various parts of the building that were used to process the sesame seed into various products - from oil to tahini to something like halwa, the sweet dessert so well-loved in the area. Before the sesame press was in the building, however, possibly even as long as 800 years ago under the Ottoman Empire, olive oil was made there. Standing there in the presence of such history, I feel the immensity of what it means to try and keep this history - these stories in place - alive.

After studying in England and working as a dental engineer, Hisham came home in 2014, when the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee offered to restore the old stone building to once again be a destination for tourism and culture. "If the HRC was going to restore this shop, my father wanted to make sure one of his sons was here to run it. I was the obvious choice."

Hisham shows us a display of gorgeous blown and painted glass for sale.

Back in the 1980s, he tells us, they would take the glass blown in Hebron and drive it to their friends, relatives, and colleagues in Gaza to be painted. "It would take just under an hour," he says. Since the increasing enclosures of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, however, that routine changed drastically in the last 25 years. "We had to take the blown glass to the border of the West Bank in one car, then go through a checkpoint with all of our materials and transfer them into another car in order to drive through Israel. Then we'd do the same when we got to Gaza." Since October 2023, however, all of that movement and exchange of craftsmanship has stopped. The blown and painted glass for sale in the shop is all old, and people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip remain trapped in place by the cruel Zionist project of colonization and military occupation.

Although Hisham continues to open his shop every morning and greet people all day with an "Ahlan wa Sahlan - Welcome!" he struggles to make a living. Like most of the stores in the once bustling Old City, there are more and more days that Hisham's shop remains completely empty, and isn't even visited by one single customer. Hisham, as well as all of those who stay to run their shops do so not only as an act of resistance to their own ethnic cleansing but also out of a deep love for their homeland.

Hisham is just one of the shop keepers we have been asked to visit on Saturday evenings, during the weekly invasion of illegal Israeli settlers and international Jewish visitors - many from the U.S. - who have come to tour the old city. For the last fifteen or so years, starting at around 4 or 5 pm, dozens of heavily armed Israeli soldiers and their APCs (armored personnel carriers) clear the streets of Palestinians and international journalists. Between one and three soldiers armed with live ammunition for every Jewish tourist force Palestinians to close their shops or wait out the scenes of violence.

During one such terrifying invasion, our own team witnessed a soldier harassing an old man and his 2-year-old grandson. The soldier forced the 2-year-old from his tricycle and then drop-kicked the bike across the street. The grandfather asked us to send him the video we took of the abuse, hoping a complaint could be made somewhere. Sadly, the complaint will almost definitely go nowhere - another shopkeeper we have befriended showed us the damage done to his son's car from one of the APCs, but when he has complained in the past, he was told by the illegal settlers, "If you complain, next time I will do the same damage to your face."

Every morning here, we wake to learn of the many nightly bombings and invasions that have taken place by the Israeli military in Palestinian neighborhoods, towns, refugee camps, and villages across the West Bank, some of them nearby. Such violence and destruction continues to force people into poverty. Children continue to beg us for money, and shopkeepers are desperate to have us into their empty shops to purchase their wears.

It is clear that the Israeli military, led by its government, is determined to continue their practices of utter brutality until they gain complete control over all of the land here, and that they are willing to use consistent violence and dehumanizing tactics to get what they want. It is hard to sustain hope that a just peace will ever be possible.

Hebron: A city divided

Hebron, a city of about 150,000 in the south of the West Bank, is a city unlike all others in Palestine; it is the only city where illegal Israeli settlements are actually located in the city itself. About 20% of the city is designated as “H2,” which means it is under the control of the Israeli Army. The rest is controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Palestinians cannot drive cars in H2, but Israelis can, and certain roads are closed even for walking to all but Israelis. Settlers have been in Hebron for 40 years, and they have created a particularly hostile environment, especially for Palestinians living near the settlements.

Settlement placed directly in Palestinian community of Tel Rumedia.

Until recently, settler violence and incidents were particularly violent and vicious. Former MPT team members, as recently as November 2007, report being called names and spit on by settlers. However, B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, has distributed video cameras to some Palestinian families (visit: http://www.btselem.org/english/Video/Shooting_Back_Index.asp), and after some incidents caught on tape appeared on Israeli TV and sparked much conversation and controversy, settlers seem to have become more wary of how they act when internationals and/or video cameras are present.. Even so, just last Wednesday, members of the German parliament were threatened and attacked by settlers while touring Hebron. Locals say they saw large stones being thrown at the caravan, though MPT could find no reports of this in the media (see http://www.thelocal.de/11369/20080417/ and http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/976056.html).

Wire barriers hung up to protect Palestinian merchants and shoppers

hold debris thrown by settlers living above the market.

On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights, Eric and Walt slept in Qurtuba School, a school for about 120 girls located directly across the street from a settlement apartment building and school. In August 2007, the school was burned by a large mob of settlers during a holiday celebration, but the building was refurbished and reopened in November. In March of this year, during another holiday, another group of settlers came to the school looking to damage or burn it, but internationals staying there were able to call police who came and dispersed the gathering before any damage was done. The principal was hesitant to add taller walls and make the building feel more “like a prison,” but taller walls were added after the continued threats. Also, because of the school’s proximity to the settlement, Internationals daily monitor the children going to and from school to prevent attacks by settler children. Even so, according to the principal, 8 girls from the school were attacked last week alone. The principal voiced her concern about the girls ability to concentrate with this uncontrolled hostility from settler children.

Qurtuba School

MPT team members accompany children home from school.

There are many horrific stories that could be told about the situation in Hebron that the team has witnessed and heard during their stay:
-- a local Palestinian activist detained and searched for no reason by a group of soldiers, only to be released 20 minutes after MPT members arrived and began to observe and video the scene.
-- a settler child chasing Palestinian children walking past “The Occupied House,” a home owned by Palestinians that was being built when settlers illegally moved in one night and have been staying since.
-- Palestinian boys and men are often stopped at multiple random checkpoints, merely causing another hassle for their movement in the area.

Soldiers surround and detain Palestinian without cause.

Soldiers go through the bag of a boy on his way to school.

Sunday morning, after their first night in the school, Walt and Eric met with the principal in her office to check in. (Qurtuba school runs Sunday – Thursday. In Palestine, Friday is the day of rest, but this school recently decided to also take Saturday off because of attacks by settler children. Settler children do not attend school on Saturdays, and so they are free to take up other pursuits.) A girl of maybe 8 came to the office and shared a story in Arabic with the principal and then began to cry. The principal explained to MPT team members that the girl wanted to go home to be with her mother because the girl’s 13- and 14-year-old brothers had been taken away by police the night before after some settler girls had told soldiers the boys had been throwing stones at them.

Later that night, Walt, Eric, seven other Internationals, and three Palestinian organizers were invited to the family’s house to talk with them and the two boys, who had since returned. Their story, as told by the younger boy, was that the boys were collecting wood for a fire when the settler girls came up. The boys ran away and soon were detained by soldiers and then taken from one checkpoint to a second checkpoint where they were detained for an hour until the police arrived.

The two boys were then taken to the police station (which is located in a local settlement) where they were handcuffed and blindfolded from midnight until 6AM, at which time they were transferred to a jail in the northern part of the West Bank. In the morning, the father went to the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), trying to get his sons released. In the afternoon, a call was made to return the boys to Hebron where the family then had to sign a paper promising to pay 1500 Israeli Shekels (about $430 US Dollars, or a month’s wage for the boys’ father) for their release. The boys had to return to the police station the next morning for questioning even though no formal charges or a complaint had been filed. According to locals, the large fee is assessed in an attempt to drive families out of the area (even to the point of bankrupting them), thus making way for settler expansion.

Boys detained without charges (with parents).

Even amidst all the horrors, on Friday night Walt and Eric were able to witness 6 Palestinian boys playing soccer on a street corner near a checkpoint, in sight of a settlement, where a soldier stood by and kicked the ball back to the boys if it came his way. One must take solace in the small things that make one believe that peace, even amidst the current situation, is still possible.