When you're Hebron for a day

A day in the life of Hebron. 
Hebron is a beautiful city of the West Bank however it is renowned for its tragedy and it's  trouble. Hebron is different to other Palestinian cities as the settlers are very present here. There are 5 Jewish settlements in Hebron and larger ones outside the city itself which effectively divides the city in two. 

Population is 40,000 Palestinians and 500 Jewish settlers. 
H1 - 80% of the municipality under Palestinian control.
H2 - 20% of the municipality under Israeli control. 
Due to several acts of violence between both sides several international peacekeeping organisations patrol the area and report any abuses. 

 Outside the Beit Hadassah Jewish Settlement

T-shirt trader in the ghostly old market of Hebron. Nets and barriers above divide the traders from the settlers.

Barb wire fencing, nets and barriers dividing the Palestinians from the illegal Jewish settlements which lie above. Many objects are thrown from the settlers down onto the net including garbage and piss.  

 

Israeli soldiers at watchtower overlooking the whole town with arms ready with intimidation and fire.

A volunteer worker from the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI)  www.eappi.org

 Sand Jar artist

The very visible empty market streets of the old city of Hebron.

 Where is the love

 

The check point which divides the settlement from the town of Hebron

Beit Hassadah Settlement - there are roughly 500 jewish settlers living in this small settlement, and it is reported by the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) that there are up to 4000 Israeli soldiers in the Old city of Hebron to protect these 500 settlers.

Above and below the main street of the settlement. It is really quite a small area however it creates a large disruption in this town.

Palestinian march against prisoners held captive in Israeli prisons 

Demolition

First impressions. Sometimes they are confusing as you're not quite sure what to make of them. Looking back at my first few snaps of the time I lay foot in the promised land, I guess I was really that. Unsure and confused..

The small promised, holy land where many people are divided over what seems very little

                     One of the highways and tunnels dividing both Israel and the West Bank, and many people in between. 

 "Whats five stories, flat roofed, and legal?"  An Israeli Settlement. Joke going around amoung ICAHD employees (Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions).

 Israeli settlement construction on left (on West Bank Territory), barbed wire fence in the middle, Palestinian wall on right, Palestinian land on the far right.

       'Segregation' / 'Apartheid' or 'Berlin Wall' as referred to by the Palestinians

                                          Demolition in progress

                           'Only Free Men Can Negotiate'

                                                 Captivating is right.

                                   Israeli product advertisement gives thumbs up to this

                                                         Dabke dancer on Arabic Television

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?