The Hebron street battle fought in peace plan's aftermath
The violence across the West Bank comes from the anger Palestinians feel about Trump's peace plan, but it is still far from becoming a third intifada.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFA Palestinian reacts next to a fire during a protest against the U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank February 6, 2020(photo credit: REUTERS/MUSSA QAWASMA)
It was a battle fought from the rooftops and on the street below, one stone and one tear-gas canister at a time.In Hebron on Thursday, the smell of tear gas filled the air near a checkpoint between the Palestinian and Israeli sections of the divided city at the military crossing known by Israelis as Machsom Hashoter (the policeman’s checkpoint) and by Palestinians as Bab al-Zawiya (the Gate of the Sufi school).H2, the Israeli side of the small metal gate that makes up the crossing, leads to the almost deserted Shuhada Street with its abandoned and shuttered shops. H1, the Palestinian side, is bustling and frequently clogged with honking cars.When violence in the West Bank heats up, the Palestinian streets adjacent to policeman’s checkpoint often become the site of violent clashes between Palestinian activists and IDF soldiers and the Border Police.Since US President Donald Trump unveiled his peace plan over a week ago, those riots by the policeman’s checkpoint have become an almost daily occurrence.On Tuesday, a border policeman was struck by a Palestinian Molotov cocktail in a dramatic moment caught on video and broadcast on KAN television. The next day, a soldier was hit by a Molotov cocktail.In that same Wednesday riot, Mohammed al-Haddad, 17, was shot dead by troops as he threw a firebomb toward security forces on the street.On Thursday, there was a protest in Hebron in which hundreds of Palestinians chanted, “We will march on Jerusalem with millions of martyrs.”The violence that broke out by the policeman’s checkpoint lasted for hours. Startled foreign tourists who had hoped to cross into H1 were turned away at the checkpoint. (Israelis are forbidden from entering Hebron’s Area A side controlled by the PA.)Hooded and masked Palestinians used vantage points atop abandoned buildings to pelt soldiers with stones. On Shuhada Street below, teens and young adults also threw stones and lobbed Molotov cocktails.
Between them was an abandoned vegetable stand. Israeli security forces responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades. At times, they moved down the street to drive off the activists. Scattered fires burned on the broken asphalt.One Palestinian activist sat on the street and defiantly held up his hands to indicate a vulgar expression.A short distance away, Palestinian activist and Hebron resident Issa Amro sat on his porch and spoke with The Jerusalem Post about the possibility of a third intifada, his disappointment with the US peace plan and the what he views as the next step for civil disobedience against Israel’s “occupation.”The interview was punctuated by explosions from the direction of the checkpoint. But from his porch, one could see only trees, grass and the city’s stone buildings.The violence across the West Bank comes from the anger Palestinians feel about the Trump plan, he said, but it is still far from becoming a third intifada.“I think the [peace plan] announcement is leading us to more much more violence and much more division and is increasing the gap between Palestinians and Israelis,” said Amro, who directs the NGO Friends of Hebron.For right now, he said, the PA is keeping a lid on the violence, something that is possible because it has retained its coordination with the IDF.But if the Palestinian Authority security forces stop that coordination, “then there will be a third intifada,” he said.“The army will not be able to control it,” he added.Amro said he views the peace deal as a document drummed up between two corrupt politicians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, so they can both stay in power.In a way, he said, Hebron is a microcosm of what a future Palestinian state would be like under the US peace deal. The West Bank would be divided by a series of checkpoints and roads.Amro said it was Netanyahu who had divided Hebron in 1997, during his first term as prime minister. Now he is trying to put that same plan in place all the West Bank.“This piece of land for you. This for piece of land for me. No geographical contiguity. A division here and a division there. A street here for the Palestinians and a street here for the Jews,” he said.“Do you want to have another Hebron?” Amro asked. “This is the future,” he said, looking out at the city. This is what the Trump administration’s peace would look like, he said, adding that “the Trump deal is Hebron.”The Palestinians “want a real peace and a long-term peace, something to make us get closer to each other and not increase the gap between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said.Instead, all that will happen is that the “Israeli occupation is going to be more aggressive,” Amro said.He has long advocated civil disobedience, he said, adding: “I am against any kind of violence. I believe in nonviolent resistance, advocacy and lobbying and networking and putting pressure and increasing the cost of the occupation by making it hard to for Israel to continue the occupation in the West Bank.”“I want a solution based on equality,” said Amro, who in the past had been a strong advocate of a two-state solution along the pre-1967 lines. “But now it seems that we [Palestinians] should go fight for one state and equal rights.”Anna Ahronheim and Khaled Abu Toameh added to this article.
