WEST BANK: PALESTINIANS FEAR THAT ISRAEL WILL NEVER EVACUATE THE FOUR HUNDRED SETTLERS LIVING IN THE HEART OF THE WEST BANK

Record ID: 400199

  • Title: WEST BANK: PALESTINIANS FEAR THAT ISRAEL WILL NEVER EVACUATE THE FOUR HUNDRED SETTLERS LIVING IN THE HEART OF THE WEST BANK
  • Date: 11th August 2005
  • Summary: (MER1) HEBRON, WEST BANK (AUGUST 10, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF HEBRON'S OLD CITY WHERE FOUR HUNDRED SETTLERS LIVE AMONG ARAB POPULATION; SLV HOUSES IN OLD CITY / AUDIO OF MUSLIM PRAYER; SLV HOUSE WITH ISRAELI POST ON ROOFTOP/ AUDIO OF PRAYER (3 SHOTS) 0.14 2. HAS SETTLER FAMILY STANDING ON BALCONY OF HOUSE/ AUDIO OF PRAYER 0.21 3. SV TOMB
  • Embargoed: 26th August 2005 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: HEBRON AND WADI AL-ROS, NEAR KIRYAT SETTLEMENT, HEBRON; WEST BANK
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVA5M0DHP26JVID0PQZR0GG2I7Z9
  • Story Text: Palestinians in Hebron fear that Israel will never
    evacuate the 400 settlers living in the heart of the West
    Bank city, which is home to 100,000 Palestinians.

    While more than 8,000 settlers are expected to
    leave 21 enclaves in Gaza, Palestinians are worried that
    the population of settlers in the West Bank will grow.

    In Hebron, there are around 400 settlers living in
    fortified compounds among 150,000 Palestinians. With
    Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral plan to
    withdraw from Gaza underway, Palestinians now fear that the
    Gaza settlers will be given homes in Hebron as part of a
    trade-off for permanent Israeli control over swathes of the
    West Bank.

    With barbed wire surrounding their homes and garbage
    bags filling the narrow alleyway of the old city,
    Palestinians say life is already difficult enough with just
    a few hundred settlers living among them. The possibility
    of more settlers arriving in Hebron will make life even
    more unbearable, residents say.

    "I one hundred per cent expect the settlers who are
    being evacuated from the Gaza Strip to be brought to
    Hebron. We have approximately 400 settlers living in Hebron
    city now. We are suffering a lot because of them, so
    imagine what will happen when another 1,000 or 2,000
    settlers are brought to Hebron from Gaza," said Abu Shadi,
    who lives in the old city.

    The Gaza pullout will mark the first time Israel has
    evacuated settlements on land Palestinians want for a
    state.

    But Sharon's plan calls for strengthening large enclaves
    in the West Bank, home to about 2.4 million Palestinians
    and 240,000 settlers.

    Israel has not said it will move the Gaza settlers to
    Hebron or any other specific area in the West Bank. It says
    it hopes to relocate some of the settlers to the southern
    Negev and northern Galilee regions. Some settlers are
    expected to be relocated to a town near Ashkelon in
    southern Israel.

    But many Palestinians in the West Bank are sceptical
    about Sharon's plan, especially those in Hebron, a city
    revered by Muslims, Jews and Christians as the burial place
    of the biblical prophet Abraham, to whom Muslims and Jews
    trace their roots.

    Settlers live only a few hundred metres (yards) from
    Palestinian houses. They live in better houses, some of
    them with sandbags in the windows. Soldiers in combat gear
    and assault rifles patrol the roads around their homes.

    Since the start of the uprising, most of the shops in
    the the old city's casbah market have been shut. Business
    is slow and most shop owners say the increase in settler
    presence in Hebron will just add to their poverty and
    misery.

    "May God keep them away. God willing, they will be
    evacuated from Gaza and moved to Tel Aviv and Haifa. This
    is what we are asking from God," Mohammed Dahoud, an
    elderly shop owner said.

    Zionists settled in the 19th and early 20th centuries,
    helping to create what became the Jewish state within
    boundaries that were set after the 1948 war with the Arabs.

    Israel's victory in the 1967 war spawned a settler
    movement across the former "Green Line" boundary, driven by
    a biblical claim to the occupied land and encouraged by
    security hawks like Sharon who sought a bulwark against
    Arab enemies.

    Clusters of trailer camps built in the early 1970s grew
    into more than 140 settlements, including towns of
    red-roofed homes housing tens of thousands. But settlement growth
    actually sped up, with the population doubling over
    the following decade, watchdog groups say.

    For people like Marwan Abdel al-Motadi, having more
    settlers in Hebron will not make any difference.

    "We are used to this situation whether they (the
    settlers from Gaza) come or not. I have been living here
    for 43 years. I was born here. So, all my life I have been
    seeing settlers and soldiers, so for me, it has become
    normal," he said.

    Palestinians have started with early celebrations of the
    upcoming Israeli withdrawal from occupied Gaza and part of
    the West Bank. While those in Gaza rejoice over the coming
    pullout, others in the West Bank are expecting the worst.

    "Our brothers in Gaza, may God bless them, will be
    celebrating the evacuation (of the settlers). We here will
    be waiting for the disaster to come, waiting for the
    settlers to come," said Mohammed Zaloum, a resident of Wadi
    al-Roos, and a neighbour of settlers living in the
    fenced-in Kiryat Arba.

    "Our situation will become even worse than it is now,"
    he said.


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