HEBRON // Hazem Abu Rajab, a Palestinian from the West Bank city of Hebron, has barely left his home in the past two months. He lives in constant fear that extremist Jewish settlers will try to take over the property, forcing him and the 15 family members that he lives with out on to the streets.
The threat of losing his house has been compounded since August 6 when the Israeli military issued an eviction notice giving the Abu Rajabs 30 days to leave the three-storey building that has been their home for 50 years.
The notice said the military was no longer able to protect the family from Jewish settlers who have been trying to take over their home for the past two-and-a-half years. After the settlers stormed the house one night in December 2012, taking over the top level of the house, the military booted them out two weeks later following a court order. However, the military did not return the floor to the Abu Rajabs and at least ten soldiers go in and out of it every day.
The military claims that it does not have the manpower to protect the Abu Rajabs against the settlers who have ramped up their efforts to evict the family in recent weeks.
But the Abu Rajabs are refusing to give in.
Hazem, 28, who is expecting his first child in two months, says that he was called in for an interrogation last Sunday with Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, a move he said was only the latest attempt by the Jewish state to intimidate his family.
“I was in jail for two years without charge from 2012,” he said. “A judge even said he didn’t have any reason to keep me in jail.”
“They are targeting me because they want to punish my family for not leaving the house.
In December 2012, shortly before they forced their way into the Abu Rajab home, settlers submitted documentation to the Israeli authorities showing that they had bought the house from a Palestinian man who in turn had bought it from an unstated member – or members – of the family. But the civil administration, Israel’s governing body in the West Bank, said in January 2013 that the settlers had failed to obtain the required permit to purchase property in the occupied territory.
Hazem said the house had been successively inherited by the original owner’s sons, grandsons and great-grandsons. “If the settlers did buy it like they claim, it was from one owner out of many,” he said. “This house belongs to the whole family.”
Since being evicted from the Abu Rajab home, the settlers have continued to push for ownership of the property in the courts but have not been successful.
Earlier this month, the settlers appeared to switch tactics, stepping up their efforts on the ground to force the Abu Rajabs from their home, Hazem said. And since the eviction notice was issued, this escalation has “gotten more and more serious”.
On August 7, a day after the notice was issued, Hazen’s 60-year-old father, the patriarch of the house, Ali Sheik Abu Rajab, was hospitalised after suffering a heart attack. Hazem believes it was caused by stress resulting from the notice and said the settlers took advantage of his father’s absence to step up their intimidation of the family, which comprises eight adults and seven children.
Last Thursday, “over 200 settlers turned up and they were dancing, playing music, and clapping and they set up plastic tables and chairs by our doorway,” he said.
Hazem’s wife Marwa, who is six months pregnant, was alone in the building’s basement – which has its own separate entrance – at the time. Settlers entered the back garden and tried to break into the basement through a glass window covered by metal bars. Afterwards, she was rushed to hospital after experiencing some bleeding as a result of the stress.
“Someone has to be inside the house 24 hours a day,” said Hazem “We block the kids from the windows – it’s too dangerous with the settlers outside with guns.”
Hazem, who earns his living as a plumber, said he has only left the house to go to work once in the past two months, leaving him struggling to provide for his family.
The family’s home is in an area of Hebron known as H2. According to an agreement between Israel and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1997, the city – which is the only part of the West Bank to have settlers living among the Palestinian population – has been divided into two parts. H1, which is home to about 200,000 Palestinians, is under full control of the Palestinian Authority. But the much smaller H2, which is home to 30,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Jewish settlers, is controlled by Israel, and sectioned off from the rest of the city by barricades and checkpoints.
In H2, Palestinian cars are forbidden and the main Shuhada Street is closed to Palestinians. Enforcing these rules and manning the barricades and checkpoints are up to 300 Israeli soldiers. The set-up works to ensure that the hardline settlers can come and go without ever having to come into contact with their Palestinian neighbours.
The Abu Rajab family say they have received little support from Hebron’s Palestinian community who fear going into H2, where attacks by Jewish settlers on local Palestinians are rife.
“People are scared to come here because it’s too risky – the soldiers humiliate people on a daily basis. Settlers beat Palestinians in front of soldiers,” said Badee Dwaik, head of the Human Rights Defenders, a Palestinian group that documents Israeli human-rights violations against Palestinians.
Mr Dwaik, a Palestinian, has been opposing evictions and settler-led violence for decades and last week camped outside the Abu Rajab house for a night to help protect the family from settlers.
He says the situation in Hebron has been escalating since the start of the year.
“We have a saying in Arabic: they’ve already killed the dead and now they walk in his funeral,” he said. “The question is, who is feeding the settlers, who funds them? The government and does and the ministry of justice.”
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
