Foreign diplomats tour Hebron, see ethnic cleansing

A large number of foreign diplomats visited Hebron Tuesday, inspecting the City’s Old  quarter where a spate of ethnic cleansing by the Israeli occupation authorities forced thousands of local Palestinians to flee their homes.

The large delegation met with Palestinian officials, including the Governor of Hebron Arif al Jabari and other local leaders who briefed the diplomats on racist Israeli measures against the City, especially since the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, which took place in February in 1994.

He told them that, thanks to Israeli repressive measures, Hebron ’s estimated 180,000-200,000 citizens were being held hostage to around  400 fanatical Jewish settlers seeking the destruction of non-Jews in Palestine .

“In 1994, a Jewish settler, a terrorist, murdered 29 Muslim worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque. However, instead of punishing the settlers, the Israeli occupation authorities punished us, the people of Hebron, by imposing lengthy curfews and drastically restricting our freedom of movement in our own city.”

Al-Jabari told the diplomats that due to Israeli measures, Hebron was a mutilated and ghettoized city, with closed streets, barbed wire and metal gates and with neighborhoods cut off from each other and streets off limit to Palestinians.

“As far as I know there is no other place in the world facing a situation like this where for the sake of the wellbeing and welfare of a few hundred fanatics, hundreds of thousands have to be tormented, persecuted and are made to suffer.”

The Governor told the visiting diplomats that Israel was blatantly violating the Hebron Protocol of 1996 with the Palestinian Authority by dismembering Hebron and closing certain streets, like the Shuhada Street , to Palestinians.

This, he said, was also paralyzing commerce and economic activities, leading to unemployment and poverty.

In an interview with PIC Tuesday,  al Jabari dismissed as brazen lies Israeli claims that previously closed streets have been reopened.

“I am the governor of Hebron . And if I walk through the street toward the Old Town and the Ibrahimi Mosque, they will turn me back. They are lying, the street is still off limit to the people of Hebron .”

Following the meeting at the governor’s office, the delegation toured the Old Town , encountering ubiquitous  Israeli army roadblocks which makes free movement for Palestinians impossible

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