Hebron business district flattened as 2,000 residents displaced
Israeli forces seized homes in the Ein Deir Baha district following a checkpoint attack, forcing families out two days before the national election.
By Daniel Brooks ·
The Hebron municipality reports that 370 families, totaling nearly 2,000 people, were displaced from the Ein Deir Baha district between Friday and Sunday.
The mass evacuation followed a gun attack on Friday at an Israeli military checkpoint that killed two soldiers. Within hours of the incident, the city of 250,000 was sealed off. The Farsh al-Hawa neighborhood, located closest to the attack site, was cleared by bulldozers. By Sunday morning, the industrial zone containing car workshops and a large ceramics plant was reduced to rubble.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich visited the area on television shortly after the attack. Their coalition is trailing in polls with two days of campaigning left. Netanyahu warned of military operations on a scale unseen in the West Bank during nearly 60 years of occupation.
Fahed Ahmaro, an imam, described the process in Ein Deir Baha. He stated that loudspeakers on military vehicles ordered residents to leave immediately around midnight on Saturday. Thirty members of his family lived in the house. He took his mother and grandchildren to a relative's home. When he returned for belongings, he found the army had blown up the gates. Ahmaro said he was buying clothes for his grandchildren on Sunday and did not know how long the displacement would last.
Abdul Halim al-Tamimi, 77, said soldiers arrived at his home at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday and gave his family 10 minutes to leave. He reported that an intelligence officer warned them they would be displaced like residents in Gaza if they refused. The family was forced out by 3 a.m. By Sunday morning, the villa was decorated with Israeli flags and used as an army headquarters.
The Israeli army stated that residents left voluntarily and that about 2,000 people in the area belonged to the Jaba'a clan, which it linked to Hamas. Residents countered that the clan contains at most 150 people and lacks a reputation for radicalism. Mayor Yousef al-Jabari called the measures collective punishment and noted that all roads were blocked by steel barriers. Delivery driver Wasam Sadi reached a checkpoint with a smashed windshield after settlers attacked him at a junction.
Palestinians in the West Bank are not eligible to vote in Tuesday's election. The outcome will determine future policies for the territory.
Source: The Guardian
