Hebron

The horror of this place paralysed me. I can only manage to write down some facts even now. #freepalestine 

• An individual who has been shot seven times in the leg (his home is near a settlement)
• Same individual’s home has an Israeli watch tower on its roof. 
• Shuhada street in the Old City is a ghost town. Israel closed down the street after a US born settler (Baruch Goldstein from Brooklyn) entered the Ibrahimi mosque and killed 29 Palestinians.
• After the massacre of 1994 the Ibrahimi mosque was divided into two: a synagogue and a mosque. 
• Entry is now controlled by the Israeli army. 
• There are checkpoints outside the Palestinian entrance. I did not find a checkpoint outside the entrance to the synagogue. 
• Shops and homes on Shuhada street have been forcibly closed and families have been 
• removed. (Not all. Some families still reside there. One family’s front door is right beside the Israeli checkpoint.) 
• I met a shop owner who was threatened at gunpoint for saying hello to a settler. 
• There are armed soldiers everywhere. Men and women with guns stand in groups and alone. They stand everywhere. 
• Our friend and guide was stopped and questioned at the checkpoint outside Ibrahimi mosque both when entering and leaving. 
• I saw Kiryat Arba, the biggest settlement in Hebron, located in the centre of the city. It homes a tomb venerating the terrorist Baruch Goldstein.
• International Solidarity Movement #ISM volunteers are based in Hebron to help students walk to and from school. 
• In one area under Israeli military law (area H2) Palestinians are not allowed to own cars.  They have restricted movement.