A documentary entitled “Hebron, Palestine: the factory of the occupation” looks back on the history of this city in the West Bank under Israeli control for more than fifty years.
When one evokes Hebron, the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resonates acutely: this city crystallizes within it the most lively tensions between the two communities. This metropolis, the largest in the West Bank, houses the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and is considered a holy place for Jews, Muslims and Christians. Following the Six-Day War of 1967, Jewish settlers settled in heart of Hebron, a first for a colony, these being until then often located on the outskirts of cities.
The city now has 850 settlers protected by 17 units of the Jewish state army responsible for drastically controlling the Palestinian inhabitants who number 35,000 in this occupied area. The documentary Hebron, Palestine: the factory of occupation, carried out by Idit Avrahami and Noam Sheizaf, describes how this city has become a laboratory of the Israeli occupation, reveals its violence and reveals how Israeli soldiers denounce the persecutions suffered by Arab citizens.
Hebron, a city colonized from the interior
Checkpoints, surveillance cameras, barbed wire, separation walls… Over the years, the means of control have multiplied in the old city of Hebron, so that Jews and Palestinians avoid crossing paths as much as possible and therefore to face. While the hope of finding a solution to the conflict was born during the Oslo peace accords, an extremist Jewish settler killed, in 1994, 29 Palestinians and injured 125 others at the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
Following this massacre, the Israeli military occupation intensified to protect the Jewish colony from possible reprisals. In 1997, the city was split into two zones: H1 became the Arab quarter, H2 the Jewish quarter, which also has many Palestinian residents. But the coercion is such that an intifada (“uprising” in Arabic) breaks out in the year 2000.
Revealing the injustices endured by Palestinians
In order to crush the Palestinian insurrection, the army hardened its tone and treated the Arab population more and more violently. Yahuda Shaul, who testifies in the documentary, was an Israeli officer stationed in Hebron at the time. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was the day we went to weld the doors of Palestinian homes on Shuhada Street. We welded the doors of the families trapping them inside, they couldn’t get out. VSIt was the moment of total rupture for me”says the former sergeant.
Shocked by the brutality and humiliation of which the Palestinians are victims, Yahuda Shaul leaves the army and decides to denounce the abuses committed by the Israeli defense forces. First by taking pictures, then by creating, in 2004, an NGO called Breaking the Silence (“breaking the silence”).
“We had to do something, tell what was happening once we got home. People had to understand.”
Yahuda Shaul, former Israeli soldierin “Hebron, Palestine: the factory of the occupation”
This Israeli non-governmental organization, which is essentially made up of Israeli soldiers and veterans, collects testimonies and reveals to public opinion the abuses suffered by the Palestinians in the occupied territories. The NGO also organizes visits to Hebron so that Israeli citizens from other regions can take stock of the harshness of the occupation by the army. Yahuda Shaul becomes a guide for the occasion. “As we walk quietly, soldiers attack Palestinian homes from Thursday evening or Friday morning until Saturday evening,” explains the former soldier to these one-day visitors. “Soldiers enter their homes at prayer times. Every house here is raided five times, every weekend, every public holiday.”
This permanent violence is linked to the ongoing colonization of the West Bank. The Palestinian population of Hebron, which has become a symbolic city, is subject to new modes of control put in place by the Israeli army. After facial recognition, autonomous weapons managed remotely by artificial intelligence are now used.
The documentary Hebron, Palestine: the factory of occupationdirected by Idit Avrahami and Noam Sheizaf, is broadcast at 10:50 p.m. on Sunday April 23 on France 5 and on france.tv.