hebron

W e s t b a n k , p a l e s t i n e

cpt in hebron

* In Hebrew, it is usually transliterated as “Chevron” with the “ch” aspirated at the back of the throat. Most Palestinians use Hebron and Al-Khalil interchangeably when talking with internationals.

Since Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) first set up in Hebron* (“Al-Khalil” in Arabic) at the invitation of the Hebron municipality, the work has taken different forms. The original team thought that CPT would be in the city for less than six months as a violence-deterring presence in the Old City until the Israeli military redeployed. With the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Hebron settler sympathizer in November 1995, much of the settler violence occurring on the street came to an end, because the Israeli police now had a mandate to arrest settlers who had directed much of the violence, and because the settlers recognized Israeli public opinion had turned against them.

In 1996, with no prospect of the Israeli military’s leaving Hebron in sight, CPT’s

Palestinian partners asked the team to remain until something definitive was decided about whether the settlers could stay or leave. The

agreement to stay until then led to a period of networking with Palestinian and Israeli groups

that led to a focus on the issue of Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes and

confiscation of Palestinian farmland. Out of that focus grew CPT’s Campaign for Secure

Dwellings — which matched North American families and churches with Palestinian families

facing home demolitions — as well as the Palestine Land Defence Committee and the

Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

When the Second Intifada broke out in the autumn of 2000, the Israeli military and Palestinian insurgents began to fight pitched battles in the streets of Hebron at night. Palestinian youth threw rocks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails and soldiers fired tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets. CPTers provided eyewitness accounts of the violence, curfews, and closures to the Western media and accompaniment for Palestinian families who found themselves in the middle of battle zones for the next two years as the Israeli military reoccupied Palestinian cities it had left as part of the Oslo agreement.

During this period, CPT also set up satellite projects in the villages of Beit Ummar and Beit Jala. Two years later, it set up a more permanent presence in the South Hebron Hills, where the team would accompany Palestinian school children and shepherds at risk of settler violence. In 2007, Hebron and At-Tuwani, where the South Hebron Hills team was based, became known officially as the Palestine Project.

history of hebron

Some archaeologists believe that Hebron is the oldest unwalled city in the world. Its importance to Jews, Christians, and Muslims is connected to the patriarch Abraham who, according to the Hebrew Scriptures, is buried there along with his wife Sarah and other family members (Genesis 23).

In the 1500s, Jews and Muslims emigrated to Hebron to escape the Spanish Inquisition. For the next 400 years, the Jewish community in Hebron flourished, becoming known, like other parts of Hebron, for its glassmaking. Moreover, its residents were famous for their Kabbalah scholarship. The Hebron Jews dressed like their Arab neighbors and spoke Arabic as their first language.

In 1928-29, the effects of British colonialism, Jews fleeing the anti-semitic pogroms of Europe, Palestinian peasants finding themselves forced off their land, and other factors led to widespread riots in Palestine. A mob of Arab extremists killed 67 Jewish men, women, and children in the Jewish quarter on 24 August 1929. More than 400 were saved by their Arab Muslim neighbors, but despite some attempts, Hebron’s Jewish families were not able to re-establish their community.

the settlements

The push to plant Jewish settlements in Hebron began in 1968*, and by the mid 1980s, settlers

had established four compounds within the Old City area of Hebron: Beit Hadassah, Avraham Avinu, Beit Romano, and Tel

Rumeida. The residents who populated the buildings believed they were reclaiming the

Jewish Quarter, as well as sites connected with Abraham and King David. Once established in

these buildings, they made lives unbearable for their Palestinian neighbors by vandalizing their

homes, throwing garbage and dirty diapers into their yards, destroying their property, and physically assaulting them. When settlers took over the buildings, soldiers set up checkpoints

to protect them and created hardships for Palestinian families, many of whom felt they

had no choice but to lock up their homes and leave. Settlers would then move families into

the vacated buildings.

*A large number of the descendants of Hebron’s original Jewish community do not recognize the settlers as the rightful heirs to their family’s property. See “Seek Peace of Hebron,” http://www.hagalil.com/israel/GuShalom/modaot/uri-4.htm

After Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein slaughtered 29 men and boys and wounded another 125 as they were praying in the Il-Ibrahimi mosque in 1994, the Israeli military initiatives to

protect the settlers became even more pronounced. Shuhada Street,

the main street through Hebron, was closed to Palestinian automobile

traffic and eventually to foot traffic as well. Currently Palestinians who live

in the buildings facing Shuhada Street are not allowed to enter or exit by

their front doors.

Shuhada Street

the work of cpt

CPTers have made themselves available to Palestinian partners in Hebron struggling to keep small efforts for justice, peace, and reconciliation going in the face of politicians who lack any real vision for ways that everyone in the region could lead dignified, prosperous lives. Currently, that includes monitoring checkpoints in the morning that teachers and students must walk through on their way to school, documenting searches of people and school bags, and perhaps more importantly, providing a friendly face on the other side of the metal detector. CPTers also monitor the afternoon return from school in the neighborhood of Al-Bowereh, where students are at risk because they must pass by a settlement and settlement outpost. See http://www.cpt.org/work/palestine/al-bowereh.

CPTers also do patrols at noon, in the late afternoon, and in the through the Old City and surrounding area, talking to shopkeepers and other people in the street for news of what they are experiencing. If the current Israeli soldier brigade in Hebron has the reputation of harassing people on the street or breaking into houses, CPTers typically follow patrols they encounter in the city and document what the soldiers are doing. Shopkeepers and other neighbors throughout the Old City who observe acts of soldier or settler harassment will call CPTers to come and document. In the winter of 2012, CPTers put together the report, “Under Attack: The Golani Brigade’s War on the Population of Al-Khalil (Hebron)” (See http://www.cpt.org/underattack) based on their documentation and documentation by other internationals working in Hebron.Another crucial piece of CPT’s work in Hebron is networking with Palestinian, Israeli, and other international NGO groups in the region and beyond.

the saturday settler tour

On Saturdays, the team and other internationals monitor tours of Hebron’s Old City led by the Hebron settlers and guarded by the Israeli military. In the past, visitors on these tours have assaulted shopkeepers and vandalized their merchandise. The presence of hundreds of settler sympathizers surrounded by heavily armed soldiers also brings normal life in the city to a standstill, preventing people from reaching their homes and places of business.

Other Resources

Introduction to CPT Palestine video

CPT Palestine Webpage

CPT in the News

Al-Bowereh

Facebook: Christian Peacemaker Teams - Palestine

Twitter: cptpalestine

To book a tour please call ourHebron office:

(970) 2-222-8485For more information please contact:

palestine-advocacy@cpt.org