A Palestinian boy holds a placard during an ‘Open Shuhada Street’ campaign. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS.

By Mel Frykberg
HEBRON, Occupied West Bank, Mar 1 2013 (IPS)

Molotov cocktails, clouds of teargas, live gunfire, ambulance sirens wailing as they ferried the wounded, and round after round of rubber-coated metal bullets exploding in the street…these were familiar scenes in Palestinian protest.

The protestors, supported by Israeli and international activists, were in a campaign that began Friday last week to open Shuhada  Street in Hebron in the southern West Bank to Palestinian pedestrians, motorists and businesses.

Following the shooting of 29 Palestinian worshippers in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron’s old city in 1994 by Israeli-American settler Baruch Goldstein from the Kiryat Arba settlement, Israeli authorities banned Palestinian motorists from accessing Shuhada Street, Hebron’s main commercial hub. The city’s Palestinian population was placed under months of continued curfew, while heavily armed Israeli settlers roamed the streets freely.

At the beginning of the second Intifadah in 2000, the Israeli military also banned Palestinian pedestrians from accessing the street, allegedly for the protection of approximately 800 Israeli settlers, illegally ensconced in the city, and surrounded by approximately 200,000 Palestinians.

The Israeli authorities also forcibly closed over 500 Palestinian businesses, economically decimating the Palestinian population and their dependents. Several years of almost permanent curfew, exacerbated by checkpoints, settler violence and clashes forced another 15,000 Palestinian residents to leave the city and hundreds more shop owners to close their businesses.

Today the formerly lively old city centre largely resembles a ghost town, with deserted streets and shuttered doors, imprisoned by a matrix of barbed wire, concrete barriers, and checkpoints manned by Israeli soldiers. The accompanying friction with the local population regularly leads to arrests, shooting injuries and deaths.

Muhamad Mohtaseb, 22, runs a souvenir shop on Shuhada Street. His shop stands isolated in the deserted street as Israeli settlers walk past and soldiers monitor movement.

Mohtaseb is one of the few Palestinian shop owners who resisted the political and economic pressures to close his shop, but his business has been strangled, forcing him to explore other commercial ventures as his family battles to survive.

“Before the second Intifadah we had lots of tourists coming here, and they were a major source of income. But tourists are now afraid to come here as they think it is dangerous. Palestinians, who comprised our other main source of revenue, are not allowed to walk on this street,” Mohtaseb told IPS.

“My family used to make 300 euros daily and now we are down to 20-30 euros a day if we are lucky. I’m married with a son and I also support my brothers, sisters and parents. I was forced to stop my education and couldn’t go to university because of our financial situation.

“I’m now trying to open a tourist travel business so that we can survive as there are some internationals who are interested in alternative tourism and seeing for themselves what is happening here,” said Mohtaseb.

“But it’s not only the economic situation that is the problem. As one of the few Palestinian shop owners who refused to close down and move away under pressure, I’m often a target for abuse from Israeli settlers who swear, spit at, threaten and sometimes physically abuse me,” Mohtaseb told IPS.

Just around the corner is a tiny grocery store belonging to Izhak Kahsha, 45, father of three children, who ekes out a hand-to-mouth living from local Palestinians. In order to get there one has to cross through several Israeli checkpoints with turnstile barriers.

Like Mohtaseb, Kahsha’s business has been decimated by the closure and restrictions. “Many of my customers used to come here and buy in bulk because they could drive home with the groceries. Now because vehicles are forbidden from coming near and people avoid the area because of the tensions I have to rely on a few customers who buy only enough to carry by hand,” Kahsha told IPS.

Zlikhah Mohtaseb, in her late forties, and her 75-year-old mother were forced to move to one of the houses overlooking Shuhada Street in 2006 for financial reasons. Zlikhah showed IPS the cage that surrounds her home.

“Due to settlers continually stoning the windows I asked the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee to assist me in installing iron grating on the side of the house overlooking the street for some protection. It has not stopped the attacks, however,” said Zlikha.

Israeli rights group B’tselem says, “Like other residents still living on the street, Zlikhah and her mother are forced to enter and leave their home by climbing a steep flight of stairs that serves as a side entrance. As they are forbidden to walk on the main street, they must take circuitous routes and go through two checkpoints in order to reach the mosque.”

In April 2007, following reports in the Israeli media and public pressure on the issue, Israel’s Civil Administration began to issue temporary permits to some Palestinians living on the street. In 2005, the Hebron Municipality and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel petitioned Israel ‘s High Court of Justice to open the street to Palestinian movement.

The state in response said the street has been closed by mistake and that Palestinians would be allowed to walk on the street, although restrictions on businesses and vehicular traffic would remain. However, Shuhada Street remains closed to Palestinians. (END).

Rehabilitation efforts have allowed 10,000 Palestinians to return to the old city of Hebron. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
HEBRON, Occupied West Bank, Dec 29 2012 (IPS)

Every day, Anas Maraka sees his family’s home, but can’t go inside. “It’s hardest for my grandfather,” said Maraka, referring to the house overlooking Shuhada Street, once the central marketplace in Hebron’s old city.

While he never lived there himself, Maraka explained that being so close – and yet, so far – from his family’s ancestral home motivates him to maintain Palestinians’ presence in the largest, and one of the most tense and volatile, cities in the West Bank.

“I like the old city. It’s our culture. Our goal is to rehabilitate houses in the old city and bring people back to abandoned houses. We want to improve the quality of life,” explained Maraka, a member of the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee (HRC).

Maraka told IPS that in 15 years of work, HRC has refurbished approximately 900 houses in the old city of Hebron. This rehabilitation, he said, has allowed some 10,000 Palestinians to return to the area.

“After the Second Intifada, most people left their houses. They were afraid to go back because of the Israeli settlers and the Israeli military. They can’t live easily in the old city, but we’re trying to bring them back. We can’t leave this area because the settlers would come to take the houses,” Maraka said.

According to a 2006 survey conducted by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, over 1,000 Palestinian homes were abandoned and over 1,800 shops were closed in the centre of Hebron as a result of Israeli restrictions in the area. This represents about 42 percent of homes, and 77 percent of businesses, that were originally used by the city’s occupants.

Currently, about 500 Jewish-Israeli settlers live in five settlements in the heart of Hebron in an area known as H2; their presence there is protected by thousands of Israeli police and soldiers.

Some 15,000 to 20,000 Palestinians also live in the old city, where they face a myriad of movement restrictions and a near-constant threat of harassment and violence at the hands of Israeli soldiers and settlers.

On Dec. 12, an Israeli border police officer shot and killed 17-year-old Hebron resident Muhammad al-Salaymeh at an Israeli checkpoint near the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron’s old city.

Officials said al-Salaymeh threatened soldiers with a gun. The alleged weapon later turned out to be a toy. Violent clashes broke out between the Israeli military and Palestinian youth in the volatile neighbourhood after the killing.

“We want to keep Palestinians living in this area and to keep resisting. It’s an important place in all of the West Bank. It’s difficult still, but we’re trying to help as much as we can,” Maraka said.

Historic buildings have been refurbished and renovated throughout Palestine for decades. Today, entire villages and towns are being rehabilitated. These efforts are seen as a way to insist on the Palestinian character of the area and to maintain Palestine’s unique, cultural heritage, according to Palestinian architect and planner Iyad Issa.

“It’s part of our history, part of our identity,” said Issa, who works with ‘Riwaq’, a Ramallah-based centre for architectural conservation, adding that rehabilitating buildings provides people with a lasting “visual memory and a tangible cultural heritage.”

Issa told IPS that Riwaq has documented some 50,000 historic buildings in Palestine that need conservation. To date, about 100 buildings in 90 different Palestinian villages have been refurbished, while four villages in the West Bank are currently undergoing overall reconstruction.

“It is a creative way to use the space. It provides social (and) cultural infrastructure and creates new functions for the (local) community,” Issa said, explaining that architectural value and social impact are the two main criteria used to select a building for conservation.

The Palestinian town of Birzeit, just north of Ramallah, is an example of a community that has benefited from overall rehabilitation. The town counts some 200 historic buildings, including over 100 in the historic old city, with some dating back to the Mamluk era.

After the Birzeit University campus moved, leaving dozens of buildings unoccupied, rehabilitation reinvigorated social and economic development, and brought tourism back to the town.

Still, according to Issa, keeping the focus on smaller, more isolated Palestinian communities is crucial, as is making sure that local residents use the buildings for their own needs.

“People in villages are quite marginalised. This heritage belongs to the community and should be used by the community,” he said. “Renovation is a process to see what’s possible, to envision a better future.”

(END)