“Hebron is like Gaza right now,” says Hayat, an Israeli Arab, the hotel receptionist, when asked what is the best way to get from Jerusalem to Hebron. “The best thing is to take a taxi, or not go at all,” he continues without even blinking.
Overdo?
On paper, absolutely. The offensive in Gaza has already caused more than 21,000 deaths, almost two hundred more in the last 24 hours, according to the Ministry of Health of the strip. And in Hebron, during the last week, no fatalities have been reported, although yesterday a young man was killed by an Israeli shot in nearby Dura, the Palestinian Authority reported.
In Hebron there are no bombings, nor is 85% of the population forced to evacuate their homes, there is no lack of electricity, nor does it suffer from everything that Gazans already suffer from the war. Hebron, however, looks like a scene that sees war approaching.
Yesterday the Israeli newspapers warned of a multiple and intentional attack on their hills. Yesterday, when La Vanguardia entered the city, an Israeli intervention in one of the avenues blocked traffic in one direction of the road and forced people to drive in the opposite direction. The atmosphere is tense and you can breathe it in every corner of the second most populous city in the West Bank after Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital.
Because Hebron is not Gaza, but its neighbors walk among deserted streets full of rubble and dirt where most of them are children and young people who play, work, beg for money, wander up and down with no known destination, all alone or in groups, without no adult beside or near you.
At the Midja Luna hospital, they do not want to specify “for reasons of confidentiality” whether in recent days, weeks, there have been more people treated by the protests, but the ambulances barely take a few minutes to head towards the center. A nearby baker, Salem, explains that he works twelve hours a day, that everything is calm now, but that the problems take place at the roundabout that overlooks the two streets that run towards the old city and around noon.
And it is about this time that the ambulances are heard.
In Hebron, most adults and young people wear black. In the touristic old city of the Mamluk period (thirteenth century), a world heritage site, the premises are closed, there are few people walking around, the Israeli forces monitor the entrances non-stop, even cutting off the street, even at noon.
Maruan Xarapati, in his twenties, with short hair, a mustache and glasses that give him an intellectual air, lives in a street parallel to the roundabout, in one of the most conflicted streets in the city that can only be accessed by ‘access after passing a high security fence that doubles as a wall, a sturdy revolving door and sharp threads that decorate its edges. It is the same street through which Jewish settler settlements are accessed, and he explains that the knocks on the doors are repeated, if not every day, every few, especially on Fridays, which are holidays; that the soldiers respond with fire, and that Hamas has more support in Hebron, but that they are doing nothing for now. “But you never know”, he adds.
According to the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Surveys, support for Hamas in Hebron is more marked than in the rest of the West Bank and there are several other groups active in the area, beyond Hamas. Hamas picks up the gauntlet when, in a recent statement, it calls on the West Bank “to intensify operations and confrontations with the enemy”.
At the entrance to Xarapati street, there are black, burnt cement blocks. The same goes for a nearby container. And the same thing that happens on the floor of the roundabout that separates his street from the continuation through which he runs away – he says – if there are riots.
Here everything is closed, here everything is rubble, “and so since October 7”, he explains. And that Hebron is not Gaza, because it is also the main industrial area of ??the West Bank: it concentrates a third of the production of wealth, especially through the marble and glass factories, today not so much footwear. “The towers of the rich Palestinians”, as they are called here, abound on the outskirts.
Ahmed, who is about to turn 18, walks with two friends through the streets surrounding the historic alleys of Hebron. Two wear black and one wears white. They say that the riots “with stones and fire”, since October 7, since the war in Gaza began, are worse and worse against the Israeli army.
In Ramadan, the taxi driver who makes it possible for this newspaper to enter and leave the city through the only access through which you can pass “of the four or five that used to be there”, summarizes on the long way back to Jerusalem that, ” if Ramallah is relaxed, Hebron is not. The people, the roads, the settlements, everything is complicated in Hebron”, he concludes.
Hebron is not Gaza, but it is entrusted to Gaza while in the strip there are no signs of the Israeli offensive slowing down.
