Julie Whittaker/The Mirror
I spent my day with a 15-year-old Palestinian guide, Ghassan, who showed me around these two areas of Hebron. Hebron was a historically Palestinian city where Israeli settlers began to create settlements after the 1967 war and subsequent Israeli occupation of Palestine. These illegal settlements forced many Palestinians out of their homes and concentrated them into the city’s center, H1. Checkpoints were built to divide the city and each group of people, leaving a circle of well-funded Israeli settlements and a dilapidated, neglected Palestinian center. The checkpoints dividing the two appeared to be at an arbitrary spot in the city. One second I was visiting Ghassan’s family’s shop where Palestinian Authority soldiers were buying soda, and the next second we turned and were crossing over a military checkpoint manned by Israeli soldiers. Tensions boiled between these two conflicting ethnic groups, creating an air of unrest that was tangible throughout the city.
After passing through the checkpoint into the Israeli side of H2, Ghassan pointed out the strip of empty houses and shops lining the street — places where Palestinians used to live and work before being forced to move by incoming Israeli settlers. The only remaining Palestinian building was a girls’ school near the checkpoint. The school-keeper explained that everyday the girls must cross the checkpoint to attend school, where settlers often wait to harass and intimidate them. That’s something I don’t like to believe is true, something that hurts to imagine: high school girls being stared down or hit with trash by settlers waiting along their walk to school. Yet I wouldn’t be quick to discredit the strong after seeing Hebron.
Next we walked to the controversial and contested religious sites of the Ibrahim Mosque (Muslim) and the Tomb of Abraham (Jewish), which occupy the same spot in the middle of the city. This tomb is the major justification cited for the Israeli settlements, whose religious settlers want to preserve Jewish access to the site. It is also one reason Israel is slow to relinquish its occupation of Hebron.
The two religious sites seemed to be one building, save a fence that further barred Palestinians like Ghassan from entering the Jewish side. I still cannot get over how distinctly everything was juxtaposed — Arab next to Israeli, Muslim next to Jewish, Palestinian next to settler. It was as tense, as you would imagine such a set-up to be.
To visit the site I crossed through another checkpoint of three revolving gates. As I walked out of the last of these gates, I looked straight into the gun of an Israeli soldier who was positioned at the door. That is definitely a moment I will not forget soon: I was happy I was clearly an American tourist and did not have to worry that the weapon might actually be used against me.
The saddest part of Hebron was what I saw walking through the Palestinian Old City, whose streets are lined with shops and people. A roof of checkered wire covers these open-air streets. As I looked up at this roof, I saw that it was covered in trash. As Ghassan explained, one of the Israeli settlements lines the Old City from above and the settlers there drop trash down onto the Palestinian street and roofs below. Looking up I was astounded and disgusted by the garbage I saw and the hatred it reflected. There was even a brick dropped amidst the trash.
Even though my heart broke, I am glad I saw Hebron. It is quite literally a divided city, with people living completely separate, yet inextricably interconnected lives. I saw in Hebron something I could never have grasped from a textbook, a lecture, or even the news: the human reality of an unjust occupation, an unending conflict, and a deep hatred unlike any I would have ever wanted to imagine
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