Israeli policies have pushed many Palestinians out of parts of the West Bank city of Hebron, an official of an international monitoring group based in the city said Monday.
Roar Sorensen of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), said difficult conditions in the area of the city under Israeli control had led to an exodus, but he did not know how many have left.
The Israeli human rights group "B'tselem" estimates that as many as 15,000 of its 35,000 Palestinian residents have left the Israeli-controlled zone, where about 500 Jewish settlers live in three enclaves. Altogether, about 130,000 Palestinians live in Hebron.
In a lengthy response, the Israeli military insisted soldiers take pains not to harm civilians but did not address the claim that thousands of Palestinians have left parts of Hebron under Israeli control.
The Palestinian governor of the Hebron area, Arif Jaabari, said many Palestinians have fled because of Israeli curfews and other harsh security measures.
"People always feel afraid," he said.
"Anyone who has an opportunity to leave the area will leave," he said.
The monitoring group was established with Israeli and Palestinian consent after an Israeli settler killed 29 Palestinians at a Hebron holy site in 1994. It has 71 unarmed observers from Norway, Italy, Denmark, Turkey and Switzerland who seek to minimize friction between Israelis and Palestinians in the city.
The Jewish enclave, known as "H-2" was left under Israeli control as part of a 1997 agreement with the Palestinian Authority. It is home to about 500 Jewish settlers, considered among the most militant in the West Bank. In all, about 130,000 Palestinians live in Hebron.
"Palestinians are moving out because it is difficult to live in H-2," Sorensen said. "It's hard to do business, hard to move around, and the area is extremely tense."
In its written response, the military admitted that its operations against the militants "have caused unpleasantness and have harmed the civilian population," blaming the militant groups for operating in civilian areas.
The military's policy is to "foil terrorist acts and avoid as much as possible harming civilians," the statement said.
In recent months, it said, the army has removed many roadblocks and allowed hundreds of shops to reopen.
In an interview, Sorensen backed up comments made by the outgoing head of the monitoring group, Jan Kristensen, in Monday's edition of the Israeli daily Haaretz. Sorensen said Kristensen was not speaking for TIPH.
"There are roadblocks in the area all the time," Kristensen told the newspaper. "Once there were more than 100 days of continuous curfew, with only brief interruptions ... The settlers go out almost every night and attack those who live near them. They break windows, cause damage and effectively force the Palestinians to leave the area."
"These are the conditions we are monitoring," Kristensen said.
Noam Arnon, a spokesman for Jewish settlers in Hebron, accused the group of being biased.
"The problem is that this organization has become the mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority," he said. "This is an organization that is hostile to Jews and to the state of Israel."
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS