It was built by settlers in the Old City, crossing lands belonging to the Ottoman era
A settlement street in Hebron imposes the power of 800 Jews over 40,000 Palestinians
The road construction threatens the ruins of Tel Rumeida and its Roman olive groves.
Emirates today
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In the Old City of Hebron, in the southern West Bank, there are four settlement outposts inhabited by 800 settlers, besieging 40,000 Palestinians and imposing their control over them, according to military orders issued on August 31, 2017, which stipulated the formation of a settlement local council with absolute municipal administrative powers for these outposts. .
Since then, the Settlement Local Council has sought to connect the outposts inside the Old City to each other as a single settlement bloc, strengthening its siege on the Palestinians inside the Old City, and imposing severe isolation on them from the Palestinian community, forcing them to forcibly leave.
To achieve this purpose, the settlement council’s bulldozers, under the protection of the occupation army, built a new settlement road linking the ancient “Tal Rumeida” area, in the center of the old city of Hebron, with the “Karantina” area in the south, to pass through lands and properties belonging to the municipality of Hebron, and four Palestinian families: Al-Ja’beh, Dandis, Al-Natsheh and Amr. It has official documents dating back to the Ottoman era confirming its ownership of these lands.
Separation area
The official of the "Youth Against Settlement" group in Hebron, Issa Amr, documents to "Emirates Today" the details of the settlement street construction process, and says: "In the late hours of midnight on Thursday, November 17, we were surprised by huge bulldozers storming the Old City, and raiding lands belonging to It is owned by the Hebron Municipality and several Palestinian families, to carry out extensive bulldozing operations on vast areas of more than two dunums.”
He added, "The bulldozers also demolished the walls of those lands, with absolute protection from the Israeli army forces, which prevented citizens from reaching these bulldozed areas."
Amr points out that the new street is a separation point with a length of 500 meters and a width of four meters. It is also a point of connection for settlement outposts in the archaeological area of Tal Rumeida and Karantina, and Al-Shuhada Street, which has been closed by the occupation for decades to Palestinians.
The official of the "Youth Against Settlement" group in Hebron states that the settlement street constitutes a safe passage for settlers to move between their outposts with absolute freedom at the expense of the lives and properties of the people of Hebron.
Amr added, "After the street connected the settlement outposts as one block, the occupation will increase the number of iron gates and military checkpoints along its length and breadth, which will restrict the freedom of Palestinians during their entry and exit, according to the soldiers' arbitrary measures."
He points out that the new street plan is a clear theft of the citizens' private property, and poses a danger to the ancient olive trees, the most prominent features of the historical Tel Rumeida area, which date back to the Roman era.
broad settlement goals
The Palestinian researcher at the Abdullah Al-Hourani Center for Studies and Documentation, Muhammad Al-Hroub, confirms that the construction of the settlement street represents a main base for establishing an infrastructure for the establishment of an integrated settlement outpost in Tel Rumeida, and the transition from the stage of scattered outposts to the establishment of a unified settlement bloc in the heart of the city of Khalil al-Rahman.
Al-Hroub told «Emirates Today», in an exclusive interview: “The settler local council aims to besiege the remaining Arab neighborhoods inside the Old City, to connect the settlement outposts with a separate road near the Ibrahimi Mosque, and the Tel Rumeida area rich in historical monuments, as well as isolate the residents from the rest of the neighborhoods and regions of the city of Hebron, and then pressuring them to forcibly leave the area, and to empty it of the Palestinian presence completely.
He adds, "The new settlement street plan carries with it pure racist and settlement dimensions against the citizens, and means that 800 settlers will control the lives of 40,000 Palestinian citizens living inside the Old City."
The Palestinian researcher points out that the new street would enhance the settlement presence by developing the services provided to the outposts, working towards improving the infrastructure that serves this separately from the Palestinians, in addition to preventing Palestinian construction inside the Old City’s neighborhoods, and increasing the amount of taxes imposed on the residents. To promote the expansion of outposts in the near future.
The new street plan is a clear theft of the citizens' private property, and poses a threat to the ancient olive trees, the most prominent features of the historic Tel Rumeida area, which date back to the Roman era.
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