Hebron

This article is about the city in the West Bank. For other uses of the name, see Hebron (disambiguation).

Hebron (Arabic: الخليل^ⓘ

al-Ḫalīl; Hebrew: חֶבְרוֹן^ⓘ, Standard Hebrew:

Ḥevron, Tiberian:

Ḥeḇrôn ISO 259-3:

Ḥebron), is located in the southern West Bank, 30 km (19 mi) south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters (3,050 ft) above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter. The city is most notable for containing the traditional burial site of the biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs and is therefore considered the second-holiest city in Judaism after Jerusalem. The city is also venerated by Muslims for its association with Abraham and was traditionally viewed as one of the "four holy cities of Islam."

Hebron is a busy hub of West Bank trade, responsible for roughly a third of the area's gross domestic product, largely due to the sale of marble from quarries. It is locally well known for its grapes, figs, limestone, pottery workshops and glassblowing factories, and is the location of the major dairy product manufacturer, al-Junaidi. The old city of Hebron is characterized by narrow, winding streets, flat-roofed stone houses, and old bazaars. The city is home to Hebron University and the Palestine Polytechnic University.

Etymology

The name "Hebron" traces back to two Semitic roots, which coalesce in the form ḥbr, having reflexes in Hebrew, Amorite and Arabic, and denoting a range of meanings from "colleague", "unite", "friend" or "to be noisy". In the proper name Hebron, the original sense may have been alliance. In Arabic, Ibrahim al-Khalil (إبراهيم الخليل) means "Abraham the friend", according to Islamic teaching signifying that, God chose Abraham as his friend. Arabic Al-Khalil thus precisely translates the ancient Hebrew toponym Ḥebron, understood as ḥaber (friend).

History

Antiquity and Israelite period

Cave of the Patriarchs

Archaeological excavations reveal traces of strong fortifications dated to the Early Bronze Age. The city was destroyed in a conflagration, and resettled in the late Middle Bronze Age. Hebron was originally a Canaanite royal city. Earlier, in Abraham's day, the city is said to be under Hittite control. In the narrative of the later Hebrew conquest, it is under Canaanite control and ruled by the three sons of Anak, descendants of the Nephilim (Joshua 10:5,6). The Book of Genesis mentions that it was formerly called Kirjath-arba, or "city of four", possibly referring to the four pairs or couples who were buried there, four tribes, four quarters four hills, or a confederated settlement of four families.

Abraham's purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs from the Hittites constitutes a seminal moment in the development of a Jewish attachment to the land. In settling here, Abraham is described as making his first covenant, an alliance with two local Amorite clans who became his ba’alei brit or masters of the covenant. The Abrahamic traditions associated with Hebron are nomadic, and may also reflect a Kenite element, since the nomadic Kenites are said to have long occupied the city, and Heber is the name for a Kenite clan.

Thereafter, Hebron is said to have been wrested from the Canaanites by either Joshua, Judah or Caleb. The town itself, with some contiguous pasture land, is then said to have been granted to the Levites of the clan of Kohath, while the fields of the city, as well as its surrounding villages were assigned to Caleb, who expels the three giants, Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, who ruled the city. Later, the biblical narrative has King David reign from Hebron for some seven years. It is there that the elders of Israel come to him to make a covenant before Yahweh and anoint him king of Israel. It was in Hebron again that Absalom has himself declared king and then raises a revolt against his father David. It became one of the principal centers of the Tribe of Judah and was classified as one of the six traditional cities of refuge for the slayer.

Hebron continued to constitute an important local economic centre, given its strategic position along trading routes, but, as is shown by the discovery of seals at Lachish with the inscription lmlk Hebron (to the king. Hebron), it remained administratively and politically dependent on Jerusalem.

Second Temple period

After the destruction of the First Temple, most of the Jewish inhabitants of Hebron were exiled, and according to the conventional view, their place was taken by Edomites in about 587 BCE. Some Jews appear to have lived there after the return from the Babylonian exile, however. This Idumean town was said to have been in turn destroyed by Judah Maccabee in 167 BCE. The city appears to have long resisted Hasmonean dominance, however, and indeed as late as the First Jewish–Roman War was still considered Idumean. Herod the Great built the wall which still surrounds the Cave of the Patriarchs. During the first war against the Romans, Hebron was conquered by Simon Bar Giora, a Sicarii leader, and burnt down by Vespasian's officer Cerealis. After the defeat of Simon bar Kokhba in 135 CE, innumerable Jewish captives were sold into slavery at Hebron's Terebinth slave-market. Eventually it became part of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine emperor Justinian I erected a Christian church over the Cave of Machpelah in the 6th century CE which was later destroyed by the Sassanid general Shahrbaraz in 614 when Khosrau II's armies besieged and took Jerusalem.

Islamic era

Hebron was one of the last cities of Syria Palestina to fall to the Islamic invasion in the 7th century.

One Islamic tradition has it that the Prophet alighted in Hebron during his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and the mosque in the city is said to conserve one of his shoes. The Rashidun Caliphate established rule over Hebron without resistance in 638, and converted the Byzantine church at the site of Abraham's tomb into a mosque. Trade greatly expanded, in particular with Bedouins in the Negev and the population to the east of the Dead Sea. The Jerusalem geographer al-Muqaddasi, writing in 985 described the town as follows:

'Habra (Hebron) is the village of Abraham al-Khalil (the Friend of God)...Within it is a strong fortress...being of enormous squared stones. In the middle of this stands a dome of stone, built in Islamic times, over the sepulchre of Abraham. The tomb of Isaac lies forward, in the main building of the mosque, the tomb of Jacob to the rear; facing each prophet lies his wife. The enclosure has been converted into a mosque, and built around it are rest houses for the pilgrims, so that they adjoin the main edifice on all sides. A small water conduit has been conducted to them. All the countryside around this town for about half a stage has villages in every direction, with vineyards and grounds producing grapes and apples called Jabal Nahra...being fruit of unsurpassed excellence...Much of this fruit is dried, and sent to Egypt.
In Hebron is a public guest house continuously open, with a cook, a baker and servants in regular attendance. These offer a dish of lentils and olive oil to every poor person who arrives, and it is set before the rich, too, should they wish to partake. Most men express the opinion this is a continuation of the guest house of Abraham, however, it is, in fact from the bequest of [the sahaba (companion) of the prophet Muhammad] Tamim-al Dari and others.... The Amir of Khurasan...has assigned to this charity one thousand dirhams yearly, ...al-Shar al-Adil bestowed on it a substantial bequest. At present time I do not know in all the realm of al-Islam any house of hospitality and charity more excellent than this one.'

'Tamim al-Dari, before converting to Islam, lived in the southern Levant. The prophet Muhammad arranged for Hebron, Beit Einun and surrounding villages to be a part of al-Dari's domain; this was implemented during Umar's reign as caliph. According to the arrangement, al-Dari and his descendants were only permitted to tax the residents for their land and the waqf of the Ibrahimi Mosque was entrusted to them.

The custom, known as the 'table of Abraham' (simāt al-khalil), was similar to the one established by the Fatimids, and in Hebron's version, it found its most famous expression. The Persian traveller Nasir-i-Khusraw who visited Hebron in 1047 records in his Safarnama that

"... this Sanctuary has belonging to it very many villages that provide revenues for pious purposes. At one of these villages is a spring, where water flows out from under a stone, but in no great abundance; and it is conducted by a channel, cut in the ground, to a place outside the town (of Hebron), where they have constructed a covered tank for collecting the water...The Sanctuary (Mashad), stands on the southern border of the town....it is enclosed by four walls. The Mihrab (or niche) and the Maksurah (or enclosed space for Friday-prayers) stand in the width of the building (at the south end). In the Maksurah are many fine Mihrabs. He further recorded that "They grow at Hebron for the most part barley, wheat being rare, but olives are in abundance. The [visitors] are given bread and olives. There are very many mills here, worked by oxen and mules, that all day long grind the flour, and further, there are slave-girls who, during the whole day are baking bread. The loaves are [about three pounds] and to every persons who arrives they give daily a loaf of bread, and a dish of lentils cooked in olive-oil, also some raisins....there are some days when as many as five hundred pilgrims arrive, to each of whom this hospitality is offered."

Crusader rule

The Caliphate lasted in the area, which was predominantly populated by peasants of various Christian persuasions, until 1099, when the Christian Crusader Godfrey de Bouillon took Hebron and renamed it "Castellion Saint Abraham". He then gave Hebron to Gerard of Avesnes as the fief of Saint Abraham. Gerard of Avesnes was a knight from Hainault held hostage at Arsuf, north of Jaffa, who had been wounded by Godfrey's own forces during the siege of the port, and later returned by the Muslims to Godfrey as a token of good will. As a Frankish garrison of the Kingdom of Jerusalem its defence was precarious, being 'little more than an island in a Moslem ocean'. The Crusaders converted the mosque and the synagogue into a church and expelled Jews living there. In 1106, an Egyptian campaign thrust into southern Judea and almost succeeded the following year in wresting Hebron back from the crusaders under Baldwin I of Jerusalem, who personally led the counter-charge to beat the Muslim forces off.

In the year 1113 during the reign of Baldwin II of Jerusalem, according to Ali of Herat (writing in 1173), a certain part over the cave of Abraham had given way, and "a number of Franks had made their entrance therein". And they discovered "(the bodies) of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob", "their shrouds having fallen to pieces, lying propped up against a wall...Then the King, after providing new shrouds, caused the place to be closed once more". Similar information is given in Ibn at Athir's Chronicle under the year 1119; "In this year was opened the tomb of Abraham, and those of his two sons Isaac and Jacob ...Many people saw the Patriarch. Their limbs had nowise been disturbed, and beside them were placed lamps of gold and of silver." The Damascene nobleman and historian Ibn al-Qalanisi in his chronicle also alludes at this time to the discovery of relics purported to be those of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a discovery which excited eager curiosity among all three communities in the southern Levant, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian.

Towards the end of the period of Crusader rule, in 1166 Maimonides visited Hebron, which he apparently thought lay east of Jerusalem, and wrote,

'On Sunday, 9 Marheshvan (17 October), I left Jerusalem for Hebron to kiss the tombs of my ancestors in the Cave. On that day, I stood in the cave and prayed, praise be to God, (in gratitude) for everything'.

A royal domain, Hebron was handed over to Philip of Milly in 1161 and joined with the Seigneurie of Transjordan. A bishop was appointed to Hebron in 1168 and the new cathedral church of St Abraham was built in the southern part of the Haram. In 1167 the episcopal see of Hebron was created along with that of Kerak and Sebastia (the tomb of John the Baptist).

In 1170, Benjamin of Tudela visited the city, which he called by its Frankish name, St.Abram de Bron. He reported:

Here there is the great church called St. Abram, and this was a Jewish place of worship at the time of the Mohammedan rule, but the Gentiles have erected there six tombs, respectively called those of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah. The custodians tell the pilgrims that these are the tombs of the Patriarchs, for which information the pilgrims give them money. If a Jew comes, however, and gives a special reward, the custodian of the cave opens unto him a gate of iron, which was constructed by our forefathers, and then he is able to descend below by means of steps, holding a lighted candle in his hand. He then reaches a cave, in which nothing is to be found, and a cave beyond, which is likewise empty, but when he reaches the third cave behold there are six sepulchres, those of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, respectively facing those of Sarah, Rebekah and Leah.

Ayyubid and Mamluk rule

The Kurdish Muslim Saladin retook Hebron in 1187 – again with Jewish assistance according to one late tradition, in exchange for a letter of security allowing them to return to the city and build a synagogue there. The name of the city was changed back to Al-Khalil. A Kurdish quarter still existed in the town during the early period of Ottoman rule. Richard the Lionheart retook the city soon after. Richard of Cornwall, brought from England to settle the dangerous feuding between Templars and Hospitallers, whose rivalry imperiled the treaty guaranteeing regional stability stipulated with the Egyptian Sultan As-Salih Ayyub, managed to impose peace on the area. But soon after his departure, feuding broke out and in 1241 the Templars mounted a damaging raid on what was, by now, Muslim Hebron, in violation of agreements.

In 1260, after the Mongol raids into Palestine, one of which touched Hebron, Sultan Baibars's Mamluk rule established peace. The minarets were built onto the structure of the Cave of Machpelah/Ibrahami Mosque at that time. Six years later, while on pilgrimage to Hebron, Baibars promulgated an edict forbidding Christians and Jews from entering the sanctuary, and the climate became less tolerant of Jews and Christians than it had been under the prior Ayyubid rule. The edict for the exclusion of Christians and Jews was not strictly enforced until the middle of the 14 Century and by 1490 not even Muslims were permitted to enter the underground caverns.

The mill at Artas was built in 1307 where the profits from its income were dedicated to the Hospital in Hebron.

Many visitors wrote about Hebron over the next two centuries, among them Nachmanides (1270), Ishtori HaParchi (1322) and Rabbi Meshulam from Volterra (1481). HaParchi in 1322 does not record any Jews in Hebron. Minute descriptions of Hebron were recorded in Stephen von Gumpenberg’s Journal (1449),by Felix Fabri (1483) and by Mejr ed-Din It was in this period, also, that the Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Sayf al-Din Qa'it Bay revived the old custom of the Hebron table of Abraham, and exported it as a model for his own madrasa in Medina. This became an immense charitable establishment near the Haram, distributing daily some 1,200 loaves of bread to travellers of all faiths.

Ottoman rule

Hebron in 1839, after a drawing by David Roberts

The expansion the Ottoman Empire along the southern Mediterranean coast under sultan Selim I coincided with the establishment of Inquisition commissions by the Reyes Católicos in Spain, which ended centuries of the Iberian convivencia. The ensuing expulsions of the Jews drove many Sephardi Jews into the Ottoman provinces, settling in Constantinople, Salonika, Sarajevo, Sofia and Anatolia. With the Holy Land incorporated into the Ottoman empire, a slow influx of Jews performing aliyah took place, and some Sephardi kabbalists settled in Hebron. By 1523, a Karaite community, consisting of 10 families, is recorded as living in Hebron, It was from them that, in 1540, Rabbi Malkiel Ashkenazi bought a courtyard (El Cortijo) and the house of prayer which he converted to the Sephardi Abraham Avinu Synagogue. This structure was restored in 1738 and enlarged in 1864, but the community was small. Decades later, it was still difficult to form a minyan, or quorum of ten, for prayer. The congregation also suffered from heavy debts, almost quadrupling from 1717 to 1729. However, in 1807, a 5-dunam (5,000 m²) plot was purchased, where Hebron's wholesale market stands today.

During the Ottoman period, the dilapidated state of the patriarchs' tombs was restored to a semblance of sumptuous dignity. Ali Bey, one of the few foreigners to gain access, reported in 1807 that,

'all the sepulchres of the patriarchs are covered with rich carpets of green silk, magnificently embroidered with gold; those of the wives are red, embroidered in like manner. The sultans of Constantinople furnish these carpets, which are renewed from time to time. Ali Bey counted nine, one over the other, upon the sepulchre of Abraham.'

Hebron also became known throughout the Arab world for its glass production, and the industry is mentioned in the books of 19th century Western travelers to Ottoman Syria. For example, Ulrich Jasper Seetzen noted during his travels in Ottoman Syria in 1808-09 that 150 persons were employed in the glass industry in Hebron, while later, in 1844, Robert Sears wrote that Hebron's population of 400 Arab families "manufactured glass lamps, which are exported to Egypt. Provisions are abundant, and there is a considerable number of shops."

Early 19th century travellers also remarked on Hebron's flourishing agriculture. Apart from glassware, it was a major exporter of dibse, grape sugar, from the famous Dabookeh grapestock characteristic of Hebron.

Northern Hebron in the mid-19th century (1850's)

In 1823, the Lubavitcher Hasidic movement established a community in Hebron.

An estimated 750 Muslims from Hebron had been drafted as soldiers, and some 500 of them were killed. In response Qasim al-Ahmad, nahiya (clan leader) of Jamma'in near Nablus, razed the area now known as the West bank in the Palestinian Arab revolt of 1834. Hebron, headed by its nazir Abd ar-Rahman Amr, declined to supply its quota of conscripts for the army and suffered badly in Ibrahim Pasha's campaign to crush the ensuing uprising. The town was invested and when its defences fell on 4 August it was sacked by Ibrahim Pasha's army. Most of the Muslim population managed to flee beforehand to the hills. The Jews however remained, and during the general pillage of the town five of them were killed.

In 1838, Hebron had an estimated 1,500 taxable Muslim households, in addition to some 240 Jews, 41 of whom were tax-payers. Taxpayers consisted here of male heads of households who owned even a very small shop or piece of land. 200 Jews and one Christian household were under 'European protections'. The total population was estimated at 10,000. When the Government of Ibrahim Pasha fell in 1841, the local clan-head Abd ar-Rahman Amr once again resumed the reins of power as the Sheik of Hebron. Due to his extortionate demands for cash from the local population, most of the Jewish population fled to Jerusalem. In 1846 the Ottoman Governor-in-chief of Jerusalem (serasker), Kıbrıslı Mehmed Emin Pasha, waged a campaign to subdue rebellious sheiks in the Hebron area, and while doing so, allowed his troops to sack the town. Though it was widely rumoured that he secretly protected Abd ar-Rahman, the latter was deported together with other local leaders (such as Muslih al-'Azza of Bayt Jibrin), but he managed to return to the area in 1848. By 1850, the Jewish population consisted of 60 Sephardi families and a 30-year old Ashkenazi community of 50 families.

In 1855, the newly appointed Ottoman pasha ("governor") of the sanjak ("district") of Jerusalem, Kamil Pasha, attempted to subdue the rebellion in the Hebron region. Kamil and his army marched towards Hebron in July 1855, with representatives from the English, French and other Western consulates as witnesses. After crushing all opposition, Kamil appointed Salama Amr, the brother and strong rival of Abd al Rachman, as nazir of the Hebron region. After this relative quiet reigned in the town for the next 4 years. Hungarian Jews of the Karlin Hasidic court settled in another part of the city in 1866. Arab-Jewish relations were good, and Alter Rivlin, who spoke Arabic and Syrian-Aramaic, was appointed Jewish representative to the city council. From 1874 the Hebron district as part of the Sanjak of Jerusalem was administered directly from Istanbul.

Late in the 19th century the production of Hebron glass declined due to competition from imported European glass-ware, however, the products of Hebron continued to be sold, particularly among the poorer populace and travelling Jewish traders from the city. At the World Fair of 1873 in Vienna, Hebron was represented with glass ornaments. A report from the French consul in 1886 suggests that glass-making remained an important source of income for Hebron, with four factories earning 60,000 francs yearly.

The Jewish community was under French protection until 1914. Hebron was 'deeply Bedouin and Islamic', and 'bleakly conservative' in its religious outlook, with a strong tradition of hostility to Jews. The Jewish presence itself was divided between the traditional Sephardi community, Orthodox and anti-Zionist, whose members spoke Arabic and adopted Arab dress, and the more recent influx of Ashkenazis. They prayed in different synagogues, sent their children to different schools, lived in different quarters and did not intermarry.

British rule

The British occupied Hebron on 8 December 1917. a move sanctioned as a part of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palestinian Arab decision to boycott the 1923 elections for a Legislative Council was made at the fifth Palestinian Congress, at which most of the Arab political organisations were represented. It was reported by Murshid Shahin (a pro-zionist activist) that there was intense resistance in Hebron to the elections. At this time, following attempts by the Lithuanian government to draft yeshiva students into the army, the Lithuanian Knesses Yisroel relocated to Hebron, after consultations between Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, Yechezkel Sarna and Moshe Mordechai Epstein. The majority of the Jewish population lived on the outskirts of Hebron along the roads to Be'ersheba and Jerusalem, renting homes owned by Arabs, a number of which were built for the express purpose of housing Jewish tenants, with a few dozen within the city around the synagogues. In the 1929 Hebron massacre, Arab rioters slaughtered some 64 to 67 Jewish men, women and children and wounded 60, and Jewish homes and synagogues were ransacked; 435 Jews survived by virtue of the shelter and assistance offered them by their Arab neighbours, who hid them. Two years later, 35 families moved back into the ruins of the Jewish quarter, but on the eve of the Palestinian Arab national revolt (April 23, 1936,) the British Government decided to move the Jewish community out of Hebron as a precautionary measure to secure its safety. The sole exception was the 8th. generation Hebronite Ya'akov ben Shalom Ezra, who processed dairy products in the city, blended in well with its social landscape and resided there under the protection of friends. In November 1947, in anticipation of the UN partition vote, the Ezra family closed its shop and left the city.

Shavei Hebron yeshiva in the Beit Romano building of the Jewish quarter in old Hebron. Modern city visible at top

At the beginning of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egypt took control of Hebron. By late 1948 part of the Egyptian forces from Bethlehem to Hebron had been cut off from their lines of supply and Pasha Glubb sent 350 Arab Legionnaires and an armoured car unit to Hebron to reinforce them there. When the Armistice was signed, the city thus fell under Jordanian military control. The day after the truce agreement Shaykh Muhamad 'Ali al-Ja'bari, Mayor of Hebron and supporter of King Abdullah I of Jordan attended the Jericho Conference presided over a meeting hoping to pass a resolution calling for the unification of the Palestinian West Bank and Jordan, only to find many other notables reluctant to cede their claim to Palestine.

Jewish settlement after the Six-Day War

After the Six-Day War in June 1967, Israel, according to the Allon Plan, was to exchange parts of the West Bank with Jordan in a proposal for trading land for peace, with Israel annexing 45% of the West Bank and Jordan the remainder.

Star of David carved above entrance, Hebron.

Allon thought settlement would determine the country's borders, and submitted to the cabinet a proposal building a Jewish settlement near Hebron. David Ben-Gurion also considered that Hebron was the one sector of the conquered territories that should remain under Jewish control, and have a large Jewish settlement. Apart from its symbolic message to the international community, settling Hebron had a theological significance of cosmic dimensions in some quarters, in that:-

'David's kingdom was a model for the messianic kingdom. David began in Hebron, so settling Hebron would lead to final redemption.'

Much of the ensuing settlement was planned and financed by the Movement for Greater Israel. Failing to obtain a green light from the government, though with Allon's consent, on Passover in 1968, a group led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger rented the main hotel in Hebron as Swiss tourists, with Haim Drukman presiding over seder, and then refused to leave. A Druze border policeman who had assisted Levinger was shot the next day. The Labor government's survival depended on the National Religious Party, and was reluctant to evacuate the settlers, given the massacre that occurred decades earlier. After heavy lobbying by Levinger, the settlement gained the tacit support of Levi Eshkol and Yigal Allon, while it was opposed by Abba Eban and Pinhas Sapir. After more than a year and a half of agitation, and a bloody attack during Sukkot (October 9, 1968), in which a grenade was thrown, apparently by a Hebron boy, onto the mosque stairs wounding 47 Israeli and foreign visitors, the government agreed to legitimize Levinger's wildcat settlement by establishing a town on the outskirts of the city. in an abandoned military base, which was named Kiryat Arba, 'as if to make the place instantly ancient.' In 1979, a group of settlers led by Miriam Levinger moved into the Dabouia, or former Hadassah Hospital, now Beit Hadassah, in central Hebron, and founded the Committee of The Jewish Community of Hebron near the Abraham Avinu Synagogue. The take-over created severe conflict with Arab shopkeepers in the same area, who appealed twice to the Israeli Supreme Court, without success. With this precedent, in February of the following year, the Government legitimized residency in the city of Hebron proper. The pattern of settlement followed by an outbreak of hostilities with local Palestinians was repeated later at Tel Rumeida. The most violent episode occurred on the 2 May 1980 when 6 yeshiva students died, on the way home from Sabbath prayer at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in a grenade and firearm attack. The event provided a major motivation for settlers near Hebron to join the Jewish Underground.

Supporters of Jewish resettlement within Hebron see their program as the reclamation of an important heritage dating back to Biblical times, which was dispersed or, it is argued, stolen by Arabs after the massacre of 1929. The purpose of settlement is to return to the 'land of our forefathers', and the Hebron model of reclaiming sacred sites in Palestinian territories has pioneered a pattern for settlers in Bethlehem and Nablus. Many reports, foreign and Israeli, are sharply critical of the settlers.

Post-Oslo Accord

File:شارع عين سارة.jpg

A street in Hebron

Israeli soldiers in an Open-air market of the city.

Hebron was the one city excluded from the interim agreement of September 1995 to restore rule over all Palestinian West Bank cities to the Palestinian Authority. Since The Oslo Agreement, violent episodes have recurred in the city. The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre took place on February 25, 1994 when Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli physician and resident of Kiryat Arba, opened fire on Muslims at prayer in the Ibrahimi Mosque, killing 29, and wounding 125 before the survivors overcame and killed him. This event was condemned by the Israeli Government, and the extreme right-wing Kach party was banned as a result.

The Jewish community has been subject to attacks by Palestinian militants, especially during the periods of the Intifadas; which saw 3 fatal stabbings and 9 fatal shootings in between the first and second Intifada (0.9% of all fatalities in Israel and the West Bank) and 17 fatal shootings (9 soldiers and 8 settlers) and 2 fatalities from a bombing during the second Intifada, and thousands of rounds fired on it from the hills above the Abu-Sneina and Harat al-Sheikh neighbourhoods. 12 Israelis were killed (Hebron Brigade commander Colonel Dror Weinberg, 8 soldiers and 3 civilians, members of the civil defense unit of Kiryat Arba) in an ambush of Jewish settlers walking home from Sabbath prayers at the synagogue in the Cave of Machpelah, and of the policemen, security guards and soldiers who rushed to their rescue. Two Temporary International Presence in Hebron observers were killed by Palestinian gunmen in a shooting attack on the road to Hebron

Israeli organization B'Tselem states that there have been "grave violations" of Palestinian human rights in Hebron because of the "presence of the settlers within the city." The organization cites regular incidents of "almost daily physical violence and property damage by settlers in the city", curfews and restrictions of movement that are "among the harshest in the Occupied Territories", and violence and by Israeli border policemen and the IDF against Palestinians who live in the city's H2 sector. According to Human Rights Watch, Palestinian areas of Hebron are frequently subject to indiscriminate firing by the IDF, leading to many casualties. Hebron mayor Mustafa Abdel Nabi invited the Christian Peacemaker Teams to assist the local Palestinian community in opposition to what they describe as Israeli military occupation, collective punishment, settler harassment, home demolitions and land confiscation.

An international unarmed observer force—the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) was subsequently established to help the normalization of the situation and to maintain a buffer between the Palestinian Arab population of the city and the Jews residing in their enclave in the old city. On February 8, 2006, TIPH temporarily left Hebron after attacks on their headquarters by some Palestinians angered by the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. TIPH came back to Hebron a few months later. On May 15, 2006, a member of a group who is a direct descendant of the 1929 refugees, urged the government to continue its support of Jewish settlement, and allow the return of eight families evacuated the previous January from homes they set up in emptied shops near the Avraham Avinu neighborhood. Beit HaShalom, established in 2007 under disputed circumstances, was under court orders permitting its forced evacuation. All the Jews were expelled on December 3, 2008.

A view of a net installed in Hebron to collect the garbage thrown down to the Palestinian sector of the Old City by Israeli settlers.

Since early 1997, following the Hebron Agreement, the city has been divided into two sectors: H1 and H2. The H1 sector, home to around 120,000 Palestinians, came under the control of the Palestinian Authority. H2, which was inhabited by around 30,000 Palestinians, remained under Israeli military control to protect several hundred Jewish residents in the old Jewish quarter. A large drop has since taken place in the Palestinian population in H2, identified with the impact of extended curfews, strict restrictions on movement with 16 check-points in place, the closure of Palestinian commercial activities near settler areas, and settler harassment. Survivors and descendants of that prior community are mixed. Some support the project of Jewish redevelopment, others commend living in peace with Hebronite Arabs, while a third group recommend a full pullout. Descendants supporting the latter views have met with Palestinian leaders in Hebron. In 1997 one group of descendants dissociated themselves from the settlers by calling them an obstacle to peace.

A total of 86 Jewish families now live in Hebron.

Demographics

Year	Muslims	Christians	Jews	Total	Notes
1538	749 h	7 h	20 h	776 h	(h = households) Source: Cohen & Lewis
1817			500		Source: Israel Foreign Ministry.
1837			423		Montefiore census
1838			700		Source: Israel Foreign Ministry.
1839	1295 f	1 f	241		(f = families) Source: David Roberts
1866			497		Montefiore census
1895			1,400		The encyclopedia of Hasidism
1922	16,074	73	430	16,577	British Mandate Census
1929			700		Source: Israel Foreign Ministry.
1930			0		Source:Israel Foreign Ministry.
1931	17,277	109	134	17,532	Source: British Mandate Census
1944	24,400	150	0	24,550	Estimate
1967	38,203	106	0	38,309	Census
1997	n/a	b/a	530	119,093	Census 1997
2007	n/a	n/a	500	163,146	Census 2007

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Main article: Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Hebron

The city of Hebron has been the site of numerous acts of violence from both sides in the context of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and remains an important locale in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jewish communities there are considered to be illegal by the UN under the Fourth Geneva Convention. However, while the Supreme Court of Israel recognizes that "the territories of Judaea and Samaria" are under "belligerent occupation" and that they are administered on that basis, this is often disputed by politicians and settlers.

The 1994 Shamgar Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israeli authorities had consistently failed to investigate or prosecute crimes committed by settlers against Palestinians.

Restrictions on Palestinian movement in H2

Palestinian control of Hebron is of the 20 or 30 square kiliometers of H1, which contains around 120,000 Palestinians. In H2, where more than 500 Jewish settlers live among 30,000 Palestinians, the Palestinian populations' movements are heavily restricted which Israel argues is due to terrorist attacks. For instance, the Palestinians are not allowed to use the Shuhada Street, the principal thoroughfare, which was renovated thanks to fundings by the United States.

As a result of these restrictions, about half the shops in H2 have gone out of business since 1994, in spite of UN efforts to pay shopkeepers to stay in business. Palestinians cannot approach near where the settlers live without special permits from the IDF.

Landmarks

On the grounds of Russian Orthodox monastery in Hebron

Cave of the Patriarchs

The most famous historic site in Hebron sits on the Cave of the Patriarchs. The site is holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. According to Genesis, Abraham purchased the cave and the field surrounding it from Ephron the Hittite to bury his wife Sarah; Abraham, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah were later buried in the cave. Thus, Hebron is referred to in Judaism as "the City of the Patriarchs", and regarded as one of its Four Holy Cities. (The remaining matriarch, Rachel, is buried outside Bethlehem). Over and around the cave itself, churches, synagogues and mosques have since been built. The Isaac Hall is now the Ibrahimi Mosque, and the Abraham Hall and Jacob Hall serve as a Jewish synagogue. In medieval Christian tradition, Hebron was one of the three cities, along with Juttah and Ain Karim, that boasted of being the home of Mary's cousin, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist and wife of Zacharias, and thus possibly the birthplace of the Baptist himself.

Ancient oak trees

The Oak of Sibta, at Hirbet es-Sibte, two kilometres southwest of Mamre, also called 'The Oak of Abraham' or 'The Oak of Mamre', is an ancient tree which, in non-Jewish tradition, is said to mark the place where Abraham pitched his tent. It is estimated that this oak is approximately 5,000 years old. The Russian Orthodox Church owns the site and the nearby monastery.

Other landmarks

The Hebron archaeological museum has a collection of artifacts from the Canaanite to the Islamic periods. Abraham's Well and the tombs of Abner ben Ner (the commander of Saul and David's army), Ruth and Jesse are also located in the city.

See also

• Hebron glass
• Shabab Al-Khaleel, the towns football team.
• Temporary International Presence in Hebron
• Hebron Yeshiva
• Palestinian Child Arts Center
• List of burial places of biblical figures
• List of people from Hebron
• Tel Rumeida
• Kiryat Arba - Israeli settlement near Hebron

Bibliography

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External links

• Hebron Chamber of Commerce
• Israeli Ministry of Foreign affairs
• Photographs of Hebron
• RamallahOnline - Photos of Hebron
• Hebron.com - English
• Collection of Palestinian articles on Hebron published by "This Week in Palestine"
• Sephardic Studies 1839 Sephardic census of Ottoman controlled Hebron.
• www.hebron.org.il