Hebron family prisoners in their own home
Hazem can’t leave his home to bring in badly needed money for his family. Hardline Jewish settlers have it surrounded, keen to take it over. And it’s getting worse
HEBRON // Hazem Abu Rajab has barely left his home in two months.
The Palestinian in the West Bank city of Hebron lives in constant fear that the extremist Jewish settlers surrounding his property will take it over, forcing him and his 15 family members on to the streets.
“I was in jail for two years without charge from 2012,” Hazem 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.”
On August 6, the Israeli military issued an eviction notice giving the family 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 had been trying to take their home for more than two years.
Settlers stormed the house one night in December 2012, taking over the top level, but the military booted them out two weeks later after a court order.
They did not, however, return the floor to the Abu Rajabs and at least 10 soldiers go in and out every day. And the settlers have increased their efforts to evict the family in recent weeks.
But the Abu Rajabs are refusing to give in.
Hazem, 28, whose wife is expecting their first child in two months, said he was called in for an interrogation last Sunday with Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet.
He said that was only the latest attempt by the Jewish state to intimidate his family.
In December 2012, just before they forced their way into the Abu Rajab home, settlers submitted papers to the Israeli authorities showing they had bought the house from a Palestinian man who had purchased it from a member 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 a permit to buy property in the occupied territory. Hazem said the house had been 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 home, the settlers have continued to push its ownership in the courts, but have not been successful.
This month, the settlers appeared to switch tactics, increasing efforts to force the Abu Rajabs from their home, Hazem said. And since the eviction notice was issued, the situation has become “more and more serious”.
On August 7, Hazem’s 60-yearold father, the patriarch of the house, Ali Sheik Abu Rajab, was taken to hospital after suffering a heart attack. Hazem said it was caused by stress from the notice. He said the settlers took advantage of his father’s absence to increase their campaign against the family of eight adults and seven children.
Last Thursday, “more than 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.
At the time, Hazem’s wife Marwa, who is six months pregnant, was alone in the building’s basement, which has its own separate entrance.
Settlers entered the back garden and tried to break into the basement through a glass window covered by metal bars.
Marwa was rushed to hospital after bleeding as a result of the stress and fear. “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. An agreement in 1997 between Israel and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat meant the city – the only part of the West Bank to have settlers – 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 small- er 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.
There are 300 Israeli soldiers enforcing these rules and manning the barricades and checkpoints.
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 said 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 breaches.
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 said the situation in Hebron has been worsening 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,” Mr Dwaik said. “The question is, who is feeding the settlers, who funds them? The government does – and the ministry of justice.”
We block the kids from the windows. It’s too dangerous with the settlers outside with guns Hazem Abu Rajab Palestinian living in Hebron