‘Like walking into a cage’: Israel tightens its grip on Hebron
Israeli soldiers patrolling through the Old City of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, 4 July 2026
Basel Adra writes in +972 on 14 July 14 2026:
On June 16, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attended a dedication ceremony for the new Israeli settlement of Doran, built on land belonging to Palestinians in Dura, south of Hebron. At the inauguration, he took the opportunity to make a drastic announcement: The 1997 Hebron Protocol had been cancelled.
Signed as part of the Oslo Accords — and just three years after an Israeli-American settler had massacred 29 Palestinians in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque — the protocol effectively divided Hebron into two: H1, constituting 80 percent of the city, where the Israeli army handed over control to the Palestinian Authority; and H2, comprising the Old City and its surrounding neighborhoods, where the Israeli army remained in control.
Crucially, even in H2, the Palestinian-run Hebron Municipality retained limited civil authority over planning, construction permits, and infrastructure development. Yet Smotrich’s decision effectively removes that authority, stripping the municipality of planning jurisdiction — including over the city’s holy sites, most notably the Ibrahimi Mosque — and placing it fully under the control of the Civil Administration, the Israeli military unit that oversees civilian policy in the occupied West Bank.
On the same day as Smotrich’s announcement, in an apparent attempt to contain the diplomatic fallout, Israel’s Foreign Ministry claimed the protocol had not been scrapped in full. In a post on X, the ministry clarified “that contrary to the finance minister’s statements, the Hebron Agreement was not canceled.” The ministry explained that the security cabinet had decided months earlier to assume control over planning and construction in areas linked to Israeli settlers and Jewish sites.
But this move alone will have far-reaching implications for Hebron — some of which are already evident on the ground.