Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Hebron
[14] In an interview with the BBC on July 12, 1967, Former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared that: in the cause of peace, Israel should take nothing in the conquered territories, with the exception of Hebron, which 'is more Jewish even than Jerusalem'.
"[15]In 1968, a group of Jewish settlers led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger, with the tacit support of Levi Eshkol and Yigal Allon,[16] rented out the main hotel in Hebron and refused to leave.
Internally divided, depending for its survival on the votes of the National Religious Party, and reluctant to forcibly evacuate the settlers from a city whose Jewish population had been massacred thirty-nine years earlier, the Labor government backed away from its original prohibition against civilian settlement in the area and permitted this group to remain within a military compound.
After more than a year and a half of agitation and a bloody Arab attack on the Hebron settlers, the government agreed to allow Levinger's group to establish a town on the outskirts of the city.
[33] Opposed to all forms of violence (they have informed local Israeli settlers that they 'stood with whomever was on the receiving end of a gun barrel'),[34] they now assist the local Palestinian community cope with the numerous restrictions—settler harassment, home demolitions, curfews and land confiscations—they are subjected to by the occupying power in what CPT, whose function is to monitor the tensions and accompany the Palestinian Hebronites on their daily rounds, calls collective punishment.
According to Human Rights Watch in 2001, Palestinian areas of Hebron were frequently subject to indiscriminate firing by the IDF, leading to civilian casualties.
Not a day passes without the throwing of stones, garbage, and feces at the frightened (Palestinian) neighbours cowering in their barricaded houses, afraid even to peek out the window.
[69] 1980 May 2: 1980 Hebron terrorist attack: Six Jews were murdered and 20 injured at 7:30 pm Friday while returning home from prayer services on foot, in accordance with Jewish religious law on the Sabbath.
[93] September 22: Several thousand West Bank Jewish settlers and their supporters from Israel skirmished with Israeli border police for more than four hours before a group of religious Jews were able to brake into the Ibrahimi Mosque, which has been closed for 7 months after the massacre of 29 Muslims in February.
[95] November 27: Rabbi Amiran Olami, 34, of Otniel was killed and an Israeli policeman wounded near Beit Hagai 10 km south of Hebron by shots fired from a passing car.
[100] September 8: Five armed men in Israeli army uniforms, some of them masked, forced their way into private homes in Halhoul town 5 kilometres North of Hebron and interrogated the residents.
[101] September 30: (Saturday) Yigal Amir (Yitzhak Rabin's assassin) was in a group of 20 Israeli who attacked Kathleen Kern and Wendy Lehman of Christian Peacemaker Team on Duboya Street while the women were filming.
Yaniv Shimel and Major Oz Tibon, both of Jerusalem, were killed when Palestinian gunmen fired on their car on the Hebron-Jerusalem road, reportedly in revenge for the assassination of Yehiya Ayyash.
[84] August 8, After a shooting at 2 settlers in Hebron city centre the Hamas military wing, the ‘Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades released a statement taking responsibility.
[110] 2000 February 10: A Palestinian woman from the West Bank town of Hebron died of a heart attack after Israeli soldiers delayed her transfer to a hospital while they were searching her house.
Hebron municipal sources said Fatimah Abu Rmeileh, 62, began feeling ill and her husband asked for an ambulance, while 10 soldiers sealed and searched their house.
[111] October 20: Jordanian citizen Walid J'afreh killed by IDF in Tarqumya, Hebron district[112] December 8: Palestinian militants opened fire on a car carrying four female teachers.
[75] 2001 February 1: Dr. Shmuel Gillis, 42, of Karmei Tzur, was killed by Palestinian gunmen who fired eleven times at his car near the Aroub refugee camp on the Jerusalem-Hebron highway.
[58] March 26: Shalhevet Pass, age 10 months, was shot dead by member of the Tanzim militant group[113] at the entrance to the Avraham Avinu neighborhood in Hebron.
[128][failed verification] September 26: Eyal Yeberbaum, 27, and 7-month old infant Shaked Avraham were shot dead by a Palestinian who knocked on the door of a home in Negohot, 9 km west of Hebron, during a celebratory Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year holiday) dinner.
In 2008 four Israeli border guards involved in the incident were belatedly convicted of the offences of falsifying records, robbery, abduction and the killing of Amran Abu Hamatiya.
[129][130][131] 2004 March 10, Thaer Mohammad Harun Eid al-Halika, 15, of Shioukh al-Aroob, near Hebron, was killed by IDF gunfire to his back at close range on his way home near Route 60.
Yaniv Mashiah, 20, of Jaffa was killed and three others were slightly wounded an hour after the beginning of Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers, when shots were fired at their vehicle near Hebron.
[128][failed verification] February 14, after being beaten Sabri Fayez Younis al-Rjoub, 17, of Dura, near Hebron was killed by IDF gunfire to his chest, abdomen, pelvis and right leg.
[133][failed verification] 26 May IDF soldiers break into, occupy a Palestinian home in Hebron to watch a soccer championship on the family's satellite TV.
[134] January 18, Olmert ordered the IDF to immediately remove nine Jewish families (some 50 people) squatting illegally on a Palestinian fruit and vegetable market in Hebron.
And where, according to testimony given by Taysir Abu Ayesha, Baruch Marzel broke into the house with 10 other settlers in the winter of 2002, beat him and attempted to drag him into the road before he was rescued by his stick-brandishing father.
[135][136][137] March Israeli settlers escorted in the 'House of Contention'[138] June 8, Hijazi Muhammad Abdul-Aziz Rzaiqat, 17, of Taffouh, near Hebron, shot to death by IDF gunfire to his chest, abdomen, left shoulder and right thigh while hunting birds with a gun.
[152] An Israeli soldier, Corporal Avraham Schneider of the elite Givati Brigade and settler from Kiryat Arba, was arrested for firing a gun in the air during the riots.
[154] Four years later, the court ruled in favor of the Israelis in the dispute over the building after they provided a video of the Palestinian who had claimed it was stolen counting the money he had received for it.
