- Title: WEST BANK: DAILY LIFE IN WEST BANK TOWN OF HEBRON
- Date: 25th December 1995
- Summary: HEBRON, WEST BANK (RECENT) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV THE TOMB OF PATRIARCHS AND THE JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN TOWN (2 SHOTS) 0.14 2. SMV ISRAELI ARMY SOLDIERS NEAR ARMY POST OUTSIDE JEWISH SETTLEMENT 0.16 3. SLV PALESTINIAN SCHOOLGIRL PASSING BY ISRAELI SOLDIER (2 SHOTS) 0.24 4. MV JEWISH MOTHER SHANI HOROWITZ MAKING BREAKFAST 0.31 5. SMV JEWISH CHILDREN SIT AROUND BREAKFAST TABLE (2 SHOTS) 0.44 6. MV HOROWITZ SAYING THAT HER CHILDREN LOVE HEBRON WITH ALL THEIR HEARTS. "THEY FEEL VERY INVOLVED, THEY FEEL VERY IMPORTANT." (ENGLISH) 0.59 7. SLV JEWISH CHILDREN WALK TO PROTECTED BUS STATION AND WAITING FOR BUS TO PICK THEM UP (3 SHOTS) 1.16 8. LV PROTECTED BUS ACCOMPANIED BY ARMY ARRIVES AT BUS STATION 1.23 9. SLV CHILDREN GO ONTO BUS/BUS DRIVER CLIPS TICKETS ISRAELI SOLDIER AT FRONT SIT (5 SHOTS) 1.40 10. TRACKING BUS DRIVES THROUGH PALESTINIAN MARKET PLACE 1.50 11. MV BUS DRIVER WITH PROTECTIVE MESS ON WINDOWS 1.53 12. MV 12-YEAR-OLD SHLOMIT SAYING: "WE ARE DOING THE ARABS A FAVOUR BY LETTING THEM LIVE HERE. IF THEY THROW A STONE AT ME OR SHOOT AT ME WHY SHOULD I ALLOW THEM (TO LIVE HERE)?" (HEBREW) 2.02 13. MV SHANI HOROWITZ SAYING WE CAN'T IGNORE THE FACT THE CHILDREN HAVE GROWN UP WITH HATRED ON THE SIDE OF THE ARABS AND THAT'S WHY SOMETIME THEY WANT TO SHOW SOME MUSCLE (ENGLISH) (CUTAWAY TO CHILDREN PLAYING WHILE ARMED SOLDIERS WATCHES (2 SHOTS) 2.18 14. SLV HEAD OF THE JEWISH RELIGIOUS COLLEGE "SHAVEI HEBRON", MOSHE BLEICHER, WALKS THROUGH MARKET TO THE YESHIVA 2.32 15. SLV SHAVEI HEBRON YESHIVA SIGN 2.34 16. HAS JEWISH STUDENTS IN YESHIVA, STUDYING TORAH 2.41 17. SCU GUN ON HIP OF AN ARMED RABBI TEACHING IN CLASSROOM, STUDENTS LISTENING 2.47 18. SMV ARMED RABBI TEACHING 2.50 19. SCU MOSHE BLEICHER SAYING: "WE SHALL FIGHT FOR HEBRON AS THE LAND OF ISRAEL. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEBRON AND TEL AVIV OR ANY OTHER PLACE." (HEBREW) 2.57 20. SLV YESHIVA STUDENTS AT THEIR DESKS (2 SHOTS) 3.06 21. SCU PALESTINIAN MOTHER INTISAR JAABARY POURING HOT MILK INTO GLASSES IN HER KITCHEN; YOUNG BOYS STAND AND WATCH (2 SHOTS) 3.22 22. SMV BOY OPENS FRIDGE; TAKING BREAD ROLLS FROM PLASTIC BAGS (2 SHOTS) 3.38 23. MV PALESTINIAN SCHOOLGIRL PUTTING THE TRADITIONAL SHAWL AROUND HER HEAD (2 SHOTS) 3.58 24. SCU 11-YEAR-OLD ALAA JAABARY SAYING: "I DREAM TO LIVE LIKE THEM. IT'S OUR LAND AND THEY HAVE MORE FREEDOM THAN US. WE ARE LIVING IN PRISON." (ARABIC) 4.16 25. SLV JAABARY FAMILY IN THEIR GUEST ROOM PAN RIGHT AS FAMILY SIT 4.26 26. SCU SHIREEN JAABARY SAYING: "THEY DON'T WANT CO-EXISTENCE. THEY MAKE US FEEL BY THEIR LOOK THAT WE ARE LIVING IN THEIR COUNTRY. THEY ALWAYS MAKE PROBLEMS FOR US." (ARABIC) 4.41 27. SLV JAABARY FAMILY CHILDREN WALK OUT OF HOUSE 4.52 28. SLV SOLDIER IN STREET WATCHES AS SCHOOLGIRLS WALK BY 4.59 29. SCU SCHOOL SIGN 5.02 30. SLV INTERIOR VIEW OF SCHOOLBOYS IN CLASSROOM IN ENGLISH LESSON WITH TEACHER WRITING ON BOARD (3 SHOTS) 5.29 31. SCU ALAA SAYING AFTER SELF-RULE THEY WILL HAVE THEIR OWN SOLDIERS. THEY MAY BEAT THEM UP BUT THEY WON'T PUT THEM IN JAIL (ENGLISH) 5.35 32. SLV LESSON IN PROGRESS 5.43 33. UNIDENTIFIED JEWISH MEN WALKING THROUGH STREET FOLLOWED BY ISRAELI SOLDIER 5.52 34. MV PALESTINIAN MAN LOOKS ON 5.55 35. SLV SMALL CHILDREN PLAYING 5.59 36. MV SMALL JEWISH CHILDREN WALKING PAST CAMERA AND COVERING LENS 6.03 37. MV SOLDIER NEXT TO TRAFFIC BARRICADE; PALESTINIAN MAN PASSES ON DONKEY-DRAWN CART 6.09 38. SCU BARRIER; SOLDIER PULLS ASIDE "STINGER" ROAD BLOCK; PALESTINIANS WITH DONKEY-DRAWN CARTS PASS THROUGH FOLLOWED BY CHILDREN; SOLDIER CLOSES BARRIER 6.27 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
- Embargoed: 9th January 1996 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: HEBRON, WEST BANK
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVA4K83KPVIDRFAXIV7I3M7DVN4J
- Story Text: INTRO: As the Israeli prime minister and Palestinian president meet to discuss the Mideast peace process and try to resolve the Hebron issue, daily life in the West Bank town illustrates the yawning chasm between Arabs and Jews.
The West Bank town of Hebron, flashpoint between Arab and Jew, sacred to both, is the most recent obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
The Bible says 4,000 years ago Abraham, father of the Jews, paid the substantial sum of 400 shekels of silver for a cave in which to bury his wife Sarah. This is the reason Hebron's 400 Jews say they can lay claim to the town of 100,000 Arabs who worship at the tomb which they know as al-Ibrahimi mosque.
For thousands of years Jews and Arabs have shared the town, witnessing massacres and riots at worst, and daily scuffles at best.
On a typical day, a group of Jewish settler children wait for a bullet- proof school bus to take them to school. They are on Hebron's Martyrs Street, where Palestinian traffic is banned.
Israeli soldiers guard the shiny Jewish houses dotting the centre of the West Bank town.
The bus speeds down the hill to the next Jewish enclave on its way to Kiryat Arba settlement on the edge of town, where children learn that Hebron is theirs since the time of Abraham.
One of the children, a 12-year-old girl named Shlomit, believes that Palestinians don't want to live in peace and says that her dream is to build a Hebron without them.
Shani Horowitz, one of the mothers who puts her children on the school bus each morning, said the children feel the way they do because they have grown up with hatred.
"That hatred started from the Arabs...that is why sometimes they like to show their own muscle and try to show that they have strength and can stand up against this hatred," says Horowitz, an immigrant from the United States who moved to central Hebron 14 years ago.
Horowitz, like many of the 130,000 settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, is on a mission from God.
Her seven children have a good life, they know nothing else, she says. They are learning Jewish spiritual values not the budding American-style consumerism of Tel Aviv, she says proudly. She denies living in a self-imposed ghetto from where her children see only a distorted image of Arabs and the Western world.
Most of the children on the bus have never spoken to a Palestinian. They move behind bullet-proof glass from central Hebron to fenced-in Kiryat Arab where they learn and play. If they ride a bike or walk in the street, a soldier stands guard.
Just what the settlers are doing in Hebron is a major point of contention delaying the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Palestinians say settlers are "stealing" their land by force to prevent its return to Arab rule. The settlers say they are "redeeming" the land promised them in the Bible.
"Hebron is the root of the entire land of Israel," maintains Moshe Bleicher, head of the Jewish religious college which has taken over a Palestinian high school and Hebron's central bus station, just down the street from the Horowitzes.
The 200 students at Bleicher's college make up about half the Jews in central Hebron, many of whom walk around with Uzi submachine-guns. The guns, the sealed Arab streets and shops around the settler enclaves, the sidelong glances of fear or contempt from both sides make Hebron a grim place.
Eleven year-old Alaa Jaabary, who sees Shlomit's bus from the window of his dour apartment house, does not think he is being done a favour by being allowed to live in what he regards as his own country.
"I dream to live like them," he says of the settlers as he prepares to walk to his United Nations-run school. "It's our land and they have more freedom than us." The Jaabary home is near the Abraham's Tomb or the Cave of the Patriarchs. Settlers have been taking over houses near the site since Israel captured the West Bank in 1967.
Alaa's elder sister Shireen says the Jews aren't interested in co-existence.
"They make us feel by their look that we are living in their country. They always make problems for us." Will life improve if the stalled deal on an Israeli troop pullback from 80 percent of Hebron is reached? The parents of Alaa and Shireen don't think so.
Intisar and Shihdeh Jaabary say only Jews who accept to live under Palestinian Authority should be allowed to live there.
The kids' expectations of self-rule are simple -- somewhere to play unharassed and someone to stand up for them. "We'll have our own soldiers," Alaa says of the Palestinian police. "Of course, they may beat us too," he adds thoughtfully, "but they won't put us in jail.
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