More From The West Bank: The Beautiful, But Troubled, City Of Hebron

Old Hebron in H2 - stunningly pretty, but eerily empty

Hebron is not like other Palestinian cities. In Ramallah, Nablus, Jericho and Bethlehem, the Palestinian Authority has control over the city limits and Israeli citizens are prohibited (by the Israeli government, for security reasons) from entering. But Hebron is divided into two parts: H1, which consists of about 80% of the city and has a population of about 120,000, is under Palestinian administration. The remainder of the city is in H2, which is under Israeli control. H2 has a few hundred Jewish settlers, some 35,000-40,000 Palestinians, and a very heavy Israeli military presence.

The city is a holy place for both Jews and Muslims, as it houses the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs (also known as the Cave of Machpelah to Jews and the Ibrahami Mosque to Muslims), where it is believed that Abraham and his wife Sarah, Isaac and his wife Rebecca, and Jacob and his wife Leah are all buried. (Jacob had another wife, Rachel, who is buried outside of Bethlehem.) Unfortunately, this ancestral commonality has not bred togetherness and has instead led to various murderous conflicts over the years. In 1929, Arab nationalists razed the Jewish quarter and killed dozens of Jews, forcing the Jewish community to flee the city.  Jews returned only after Israel took control of the West Bank in 1967.  More violence erupted in 1994, when American-born Baruch Goldstein opened fire in the mosque at the holy Tomb, killing 29 men and injuring several hundred others. And just a few months ago, four Jewish settlers in the neighboring town of Kiryat Arba were gunned down in cold blood while sitting in their car.

The Jewish presence inside the city certainly makes it easier to get to Hebron, as compared with other cities in the West Bank. I took the #160 bus from the main Jerusalem bus station right to the Tomb, which lies within H2, the Israeli-controlled part of town. There was one significant difference from other Israeli buses that I noticed almost immediately upon taking my seat: thick bullet-proof windows.

Like the city, the Tomb is divided, with separate entrances and prayer halls for Jews and Muslims - who come to honor the same biblical ancestors but do not interact with one another. After going through the security checkpoint on the Jewish side (I had to show my passport and they asked me to check any weapons that I was carrying), I entered the Tomb and said a prayer for peace.

Tomb of the Patriarchs & Matriarchs

Closeup shot

Panoramic shot

Historic building next to the Tomb

After my visit to the Tomb, I wanted to walk a bit around Hebron's Old City, which surrounds the Tomb. But an Israeli soldier stopped me and said it wasn't a good idea.  I went anyway, but in retrospect he was probably right. The historic architecture was stunning, but it was eerily quiet - as if I was suddenly in a ghost town.  Shop windows were shuttered, even though this had once been a thriving commercial district. Many houses were vacant, even though I was in the heart of the old city.  A group of young Arab boys gathered around me - at first, it seemed playful, but then they started pulling and hanging on me rather aggressively, and a particularly rambunctious little guy with a mischievous look on his face started to spit at me repeatedly.  Another boy - no older than Jeremy - was smoking a cigarette and started a small fire in a pile of garbage and rubble.  I started to feel uncomfortable at this point (for the first time in Israel), so I high-tailed it back to the Tomb.  But I was determined to continue on and see more of the city.  I walked the other way from the Tomb, on a broad street with plenty of Israeli soldiers. There was a lone jogger (an Israeli settler) and a few cars with Israeli license places (and several heavily armed military vehicles) raced by, but otherwise the street was utterly dead.  It was a spooky feeling, enhanced by the ubiquitous presence of barbed wire and concrete barriers. Just when I was wondering what else to do in town, a young Arab man named Islam started to walk with me and offered to take me on a tour of H1, the Palestinian-controlled area, which I hadn't seen yet. I walked with him for a bit, but at a certain point in the road there was a concrete barrier manned by an Israeli soldier and Islam stopped and said he wasn't allowed to go any further.

The beauty and emptiness of Hebron's Old City in H2

With some trepidation, I agreed to the tour.  Islam took me through a checkpoint into the H1 area, and there was an old neighborhood with stores, businesses and residences that at least had some semblance of normalcy.  Several people came up and said "Hello, welcome to Palestine!" and my discomfort of several moments earlier started to wane.  But as we walked through the city, Islam pointed out to me the security cameras and military watchtowers that lined the rooftops and hilltops.  We walked by more concrete and barbed wire, which separated H1 from H2.  We concluded our tour in an old Muslim cemetery on a hill that offered great views over the city. Islam showed me the path through the cemetery that Palestinians take to avoid checkpoints in the city in order to make it easier to go shopping, go to work, and get to school.

As I crossed back into H2 to make my way back to the bus stop to catch a bus to Jerusalem, I walked once more by a large line of eerily empty storefronts, some with overgrown vines, some that had been welded shut. There was some appalling Jewish graffiti, including a skull and cross-bones on a Palestinian house and a particularly disturbing note spray-painted in English that said: "Gas the Arabs!"  The irony of it was shockingly painful and I felt like crying.

I sat down at the bus stop next to a German tourist, who recounted her own difficulties in touring the city, including an encounter with an aggressive group of young Arab boys that made her feel extremely uncomfortable. She was leaving for Germany in the next few days, and she said that she was going to do her best to forget her traumatic visit to Hebron and take home with her instead the image of the West Bank she got from her visit to Bethlehem.

I don't mean to have any particular slant in writing this post, and it certainly was not an enjoyable one to write. I've tried merely to recount what I observed and how I felt at the time, in as neutral terms as possible. As our time in Israel winds down over the next few days, I'm going to try to do some mindless fun stuff with the kids, like go to the beach one last time, go to the beautiful Ramat Gan zoo, eat sushi, and share an ice cream sundae.  But I'll also try my hardest to keep the hope alive that one day peace will come to Hebron - and to Israel.