Palestine: Hebron – Exploring the Palestinian Side
Hebron is one of the oldest cities in the world, going back over 2000 years. Hebron is the second largest city in the Palestinian West Bank (after East Jerusalem), with the Palestinian population of around 220K in the Palestinian side and the Jewish settlers of around 1K on the Jewish side. The city is deeply divided and we came here on a dual narrative tour where you spend half the day with the Palestinian guides and people telling their side, and then the afternoon with Jewish guides and settlers giving you the alternative version. Hebron is often viewed as the microcosm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and once you see it here, you get an understanding of it on a larger scale. Under the 1997 Hebron Agreement, the city was divided into two zones – H1 (controlled by Palestinian Authority) and H2 (controlled by Israel that includes the Israeli settlements and the adjoining Old City of Hebron with roughly 35K Palestinians). As we roamed the Palestinian areas of H2, we saw a city where life attempts to be normal, but mostly fails due to the security measures next to the Israeli settlements and deep animosity toward them.
