Behind the Wall - 'Two hours in Al-Khalil'
 

Palestine is an Occupied country, of that there is no question. Within the country, the Occupation manifests itself in many different forms and faces. One of the most visually obvious aspects of the Occupation, in human form, is in the city of Al Khalil.

Al Khalil is the only city in which Zionist settlers have actually succeeded in 'permanent' residence actually inside the Palestinian city. I say 'permanent' not because I believe they will always remain, or because they have any right to be there, but because they live there currently, and have done for many years. They have Occupied large parts of the city and both forcibly and violently chased Palestinian residents from their homes and workplaces.

In 1994 Baruch Goldstein, a radical American Jewish Zionist from New York, walked into Ibrahimi Mosque during Ramadan prayers and opened fire on Palestinian worshippers killing twenty-nine as he shot them through the back. Goldstein was also a qualified physician. He was eventually beaten to death by survivors of the attack before he could escape. Goldstein was buried in a 'shrine' in the Zionist settlement of Kiryat Arba in Al-Khalil, and his 'shrine' is visited and worshipped by many of the Settlers.

Goldstein's massacre is one of the most famous examples of Settler attacks in Al-Khalil, but in reality it is simply one of many hundreds or thousands. I used to work in the Tel Rumeida part of the city were Settlers roam the streets freely with M-16s or Uzis, and attacks against the Palestinian population occur on a daily basis. We would walk with Palestinian schoolchildren to and from school in an attempt to prevent attacks against them. These children are regularly stoned, beaten, and verbally abused whilst they attempt to carry out their right to education. Palestinians have been murdered by Settlers in Tel Rumeida, children have had there teeth smashed out with stones, the stories are endless. Many Palestinians have been forced out of Tel Rumeida but those who remain tend to stay off the streets, and inside their houses, all of which have cages over their smashed windows, and other physical damage, caused by the Settlers. Al-Khalil's Old City is much the same. What was once a thriving souk, reputedly oneof the oldest continuously inhabited souks in the world, is these days home to just a few traders. Shop doors have been welded shut by the Settlers after they violently evicted the Palestinian owners.

There are an estimated 4-500 Settlers in Al-Khalil and an estimated 2000 IOF soldiers there to protect them, and protect their right to occupy land and property, and physically attack or even kill the local population. These IOF soldiers constantly patrol the city's streets and are visible every single day. This is not the case in other Palestinian cities where soldiers regularly invade but do not actually openly patrol the streets on a daily basis.

We currently have some Greek guests in Aida Camp who wanted to visit Al-Khalil but were somewhat reluctant to go alone. So knowing the city well, I offered to take them. Driving south down the infamous Route 60 towards the city the continuous Settlement block of Gush Etzion provides the clues as to what lays ahead. This Settlement block now stretches for almost the entire 24kms of the country between Bethlehem and Al-Khalil. Endless amounts of land continue to be stolen as this block grows at a frightening rate. Upon reaching Al-Khalil the service stops in the bustling Palestinian marketplace where Palestinian life looks to be thriving. It doesn't take long to reach Beit Romano, the deserted square where Ibrahim's Pavement Caf has recently opened, becoming the only one of nineteen shop units that is currently open in the Square. I took my friends to meet Ibrahim and hear his remarkable story of a life of resistance. A friend of Ibrahim is also there, I had met him a few years earlier and also visited what reains of their house, in which their family has lived for hundreds of years. They were forced from their house in the Old City years ago:

"The Settlers from Avraham Avinu destroyed much of our house. The Israeli Army then sealed it off to us, saying this was to 'protect' us from the Settlers. We took the case to the Israeli Supreme Court and they said we could move back, but we are still waiting..."

Whilst talking with Ibrahim and his friend I noticed an IOF patrol entering the square from the Old City direction, I pointed them out to the visitors although this is nothing unusual here. However, as the patrol neared their watchtowers I noticed that the seven or eight heavily armed soldiers were surrounding, and dwarfing, three small Palestinian children. They noticed us watching and quickly whisked the boys out of sight into the watch-posts and through the heavy metal gate that leads into one of the areas now solely for Settlers. These three children looked terrified as they were led away. There are International groups working in the city to document Human Rights abuses, such as the arrest of minors, and to intervene if possible, but nobody is present when the children are led away so I made some phone calls to contacts in these groups. Members of one of these groups managed to catch sight of the boys being led into the IOF military camp. She reported that by that time all three had been blindfolded and were taken into a small metal cell in the military base. Phone calls were also made to the IOF to let them know that people were aware of the situation and that they were being monitored, there is little else that can be done other than to hope that the exertion of this pressure offers the children some sort of protection. The groups continue to monitor the situation and make phone calls to various Human Rights organizations and the Israeli Authorities. I knew there was little else I could do so I took my guests, one of whom was by this time in tears at what she had witnessed, down into the Old City, to help them to get an understanding of the situation down there.

Above the Old City wire fencing has been placed to act as a net which catches many of the things Settlers throw down onto passers by from the Palestinian houses they have Occupied on top of the mostly closed shop units. The streets were as quiet as always, metal shop doors barred and welded shut.

We stopped at one open shop to talk to an old friend of mine. Jamal used to run his souvenir shop from near Beit Romano, but moved back down into the Old City last year in a show of resistance. His family had been chased out of this shop, their original shop, many years earlier:

"I'm happy to be back in the Old City. This is our real shop and it feels good to be back. My children are older now, I used to hate them being down here as young children because it was so dangerous for them to be with me."

Jamal offered us coffee but I explained that we were heading down towards Ibrahimi Mosque.

"You won't get in there, they (the IOF) have closed the checkpoint again for the Jewish feast.."

Since Baruch Goldstein's massacre, half of Ibrahimi Mosque has been actually turned into a Synagogue for the Settlers, it almost seems like a reward for his actions. On Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, and during Jewish religious holidays, the entire Mosque is closed to Palestinians. Only Settlers are allowed into the area during these times. I took my friends down anyway, at least to help them to understand some of the restrictions enforced on Palestinians in the city. As Jamal had said the huge iron checkpoint gates were all locked, no-one could pass through. The Settlers don't have to pass through checkpoints and can access the Mosque (their Synagogue) from another route.

Reaching Beit Romano again, we saw a small group gathering, in the midst of it I was relieved to see the three boys arrested about one and a half hours earlier. We go over to them and begin to talk to one of them. It turns out he is the youngest of the three, he is just ten years old:

"Our house is next to the soldiers' camp. They came to our house and said we had been throwing stones and took us all away. We weren't throwing stones."

The other two boys are eleven and fifteen. The youngest boy continues to explain what had happened:

"When they took us through that gate they took us to the soldiers' camp. They blindfolded all of us."

I asked him if the soldiers had beaten him. He said they hadn't but that they had grabbed his head from behind and shaken it very hard. He also had a deep scratch across his cheekbone which had been caused by the blindfold being pulled very tight:

"This is the third time they have done this to us."

The young boy then pulls at his hair:

"Look, my hair is starting to fall out."

I asked if the soldiers had pulled his hair, but he said no. He explained this was just from stress. The boys didn't want to hang around in Beit Romano, we all knew we were being watched as we stood there. They were eager to get home again and soon disappeared.

My two friends had wanted to come to Al-Khalil to get a better understanding of different aspects of the Occupation. As we boarded a taxi back to Bethlehem I asked them what time it was. We had only been in the city for just over two hours, during this time they had heard Ibrahim's story of a life time in and out of Occupation prisons, and seen the physical damage it has caused him. They had also heard Ibrahim's friend explain about his family being chased out of their family home of hundereds of years and still being unable to return. They had seen patrols of heavily armed Occupation soldiers patrolling the city and the devastation the Settlers have caused to the Old City. They had seen children being arrested. We also found out that a resident of Tel Rumeida had had his car set alight the previous night by Settlers. And finally, we had spoken with this ten year old boy. This boy whose hair is now starting to fall out because of the constant fear which dominates his life, and who had just been released after his third arrest before even reaching his teenage years. They had witnessed all this in just two hours in Al-Khalil. Imagine how it must feel to have lived there for your entire life.