Almost 5,000 people have been displaced as a result of Israel’s military siege on the southern West Bank city of Hebron, Al Jazeera reveals.
As the lockdown, which has choked the city off at 10 identified entry points, enters its second week on Friday, the number of people forcibly removed from their homes stands at 4,969. The displaced population includes vulnerable groups: 441 elderly people, 336 infants less than two years old and 312 patients with chronic diseases. More than 200 pregnant or nursing women are also included, as well as 44 people with disabilities.
Al Jazeera, which has analysed municipal data and statistics from human rights groups, reveals that 780 families are currently displaced, representing about 2 percent of the city’s 250,000 residents.
“Thousands of citizens were forced out of their homes, and the world watched children crying after midnight,” Hebron Mayor Yousef al-Jabari told Al Jazeera. He added in a statement to Anadolu agency that Hebron is “facing a severe, massive siege and collective punishment”.
On October 24, the mayor told Al Jazeera that about 2,200 people were displaced, meaning the number had more than doubled in just two days.
‘We will act to destroy this place’
The military siege began on Friday, October 23, after two Palestinians shot two Israeli soldiers dead in Hebron and injured three others, before the army killed the two attackers.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on social media that he had ordered security forces to immediately close Hebron and “prepare for a full lockdown across all of Judea and Samaria [the Israeli term for the occupied West Bank]”.
“We will act to destroy this place, to change it completely,” he proclaimed.
The Israeli army said the operation aims to “thwart terrorism” by searching, arresting suspects, and confiscating weapons.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said Palestinians will not be allowed to return to their homes until Hamas’s “infrastructure” is dismantled.
However, the Israeli news site Ynet quoted the army as saying the search for weapons has had “limited accomplishments” and keeping residents away from their homes for a prolonged period faces “legal difficulties”.
The municipality noted that the targeted eviction zone spans 0.35 square kilometres (0.14 square miles) – the size of 49 football pitches and an area housing more than 500 families comprising at least 2,500 individuals.
Conditions remain precarious; among the families whose locations have been tracked, 283 are residing with relatives and 266 are in locations classified by the municipality as unsafe.
According to Al Jazeera’s findings, most displaced families have sought refuge with relatives or host families in nearby neighbourhoods such as Issa, and no one has resorted to official shelter centres, while only 23 families managed to secure rented homes.
Cordoning off a city
Al Jazeera’s analysis shows that Israeli forces have surrounded the city by closing off 10 entrances located between 2.4km (1.5 miles) and 7.6km (4.7 miles) from the centre.
These blockades include Halhul, Nabi Yunus and Ras al-Jora to the north; Beit Einun to the northeast; and Bir al-Mahjar to the northwest. The eastern and southern flanks are blockaded by closures at Jabal Juhar, al-Fahs, Qalqas, al-Harayiq and Dura.
The closed military operations zone lies about 2km (1.2 miles) west of the city centre, covering a documented area of at least 0.29sq km (0.11sq miles), or about 40 football fields.
In the Farsh al-Hawa area at the city’s western entrance, Israeli forces demolished a three-apartment residential building during the first two days of the operation – October 23 and 24 – targeted a ceramics company alongside car parts shops, and bulldozed approximately 7,000 square metres (75,000 square feet) of land.
Families were also evicted from the al-Jalda and Ein Deir Bahha neighbourhoods about midnight on Friday, October 23, when Israeli forces ordered residents via loudspeakers to leave.
During the first two days of the operation, forces converted several homes into military barracks and raised Israeli flags on them, according to Anadolu.
Raids, arrests and interrogations
Over the first six days of the operation, the Israeli military arrested approximately 110 Palestinians across the governorate, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
The detainees include seven children, people with special needs, and dozens of former prisoners. Israeli forces also arrested three women, releasing two while keeping the third under interrogation at the al-Mascobiyeh detention centre.
Furthermore, the military continues to hold eight relatives of the two Palestinian gunmen who killed the Israeli soldiers, having transferred them to interrogation centres.
Beyond formal arrests, hundreds of citizens have been subjected to field interrogations during military raids.
The PPS reported that these interrogations, conducted on streets, at checkpoints and inside homes, have been accompanied by severe beatings and abuse.
The military has searched more than 500 sites in the city.
The Israeli army claims to have discovered a 15-metre- (50ft-) deep underground pit containing an electronic device near an attacker’s home, although the property owner has denied this. The owner said the excavation is a sewage cesspit for an area lacking infrastructure, adding that the property belongs to neither of the gunmen and is more than 100 metres (330ft) from their residences.
Economic paralysis
The Hebron Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates daily commercial losses at 12 million shekels (about $3.8m) as a result of this siege.
Factory production capacity has plummeted by 40 to 60 percent, according to estimates by Adnan al-Natsheh, vice president of the Chamber.
The governorate houses about 3,500 industrial facilities, in particular plastics and dairy facilities, as well as 70 percent of the gold workshops for the Palestinian market.
The movement of commercial trucks has completely halted. The demolitions in Farsh al-Hawa alone have caused damage of more than two million shekels (about $640,000).
This recent escalation compounds an already heavy toll across the occupied West Bank.
In September alone, the Hebron governorate faced 272 attacks, including 122 perpetrated by Israeli settlers, and 19 demolition operations that levelled 91 structures, making it the most targeted governorate in the West Bank for demolitions.
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