Israel’s plan to build new settlement atop Hebron market evokes painful memories for residents


Shuhada Street Hebron, desolate

Yumna Patel reports in Mondoweiss:

A new Israeli settlement will be built in the heart of the flashpoint city of Hebron, in the southern West Bank, joining a long list of notoriously violent settlements in the area.

Israeli Defence Minister Naftali Bennet, of the ultra nationalist “New Right” party, said on Sunday that a new settlement would be built on top of Hebron’s once bustling fruit and vegetable market, now referred to by locals as a “ghost town.”

According to Bennet, the existing buildings, which belong to the Hebron municipality, will be razed to the ground to make way for new shops and buildings for the settlers.

The new settlement will create a contiguous settlement bloc in the middle of Hebron’s Old City, extending from the Ibrahimi Mosque to the Avraham Avinu settlement, and according to Bennet, will double the Jewish population of the city.

While local settlers celebrated the announcement and thanked Bennet and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the decision, Palestinians in the city say the construction of a settlement on that specific part of the city would be rubbing salt in the wounds of their community.

“This is devastating news for us,” local activist Imad Abu Shamsiyyeh told Mondoweiss.

“The Hebron fruit and vegetable market used to be the bustling center of this city, until the Palestinians were forced out by the Israeli occupation,” he said indignantly, frustrated by the thought of settlers officially taking over the once beloved souq.

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