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By Ahmad Sub Laban
ON AUGUST 9, Israeli bulldozers sank their jaws into three buildings
in the old city of Hebron. The demolitions, to make way for a
settler-only road to connect the Kiryat Arba settlement with the
Ibrahimi Mosque, caused an outrage.
The three buildings were ancient, dating back some 500 years to the
Mamluk period. The alleys in the Jaber and Salaymeh quarters where
the houses were situated and the stone arches above them used to
form the southern entrance to the old city.
"These three buildings were part of the structural fabric of
Hebron's old city and part of the historical environment surrounding
the Ibrahimi Mosque," said Imad Hamdan, public relations director
for the Hebron Reconstruction Committee, in an interview with the
Palestine Report. "It seems the occupation forces ignored this fact.
They tore down these historical buildings in order to build a
settler road which they are calling 'Worshippers Road.'"
The demolitions were denounced by the highest official circles.
Prime Minister Ahmad Qrei', in a statement released by his
government on August 10, called it a "true crime by the occupation
against the Palestinian people." Israel, he said, demolished these
historical sites with no regard to humanity or civilization.
Hamdan believes Israel is waging a war on the heritage of Hebron's
old city, pointing to the fact that there are tens of other houses
slated for demolition, some of which date back to the Mamluk and
Ottoman eras and others that were built during the British Mandate.
It is a clear indication to Hamdan of an Israeli attempt to Judaize
the old city and the area around the Ibrahimi Mosque.
"This new settler road will pass through the Wadi Nasara, Jabaer and
Salaymeh quarters and the neighborhoods east of the Ibrahimi
Mosque," explained Hamdan, but pointed to an existing road, also
off-limits to Palestinian motorists, which runs a similar route and
is only 150 meters longer. "The difference is only 15 seconds in any
car," he said. "Their 'security concerns' are already being
addressed by the existing road."
A loss of centuries "These violations are aimed at imposing facts on
the ground through settlement expansion at the expense of the
property of residents in the old city and its surroundings," said
Areef Jabari, Hebron governor. "What happened is a disaster that can
never be rectified. We can never bring back the ancient houses that
were torn down. With them, almost six centuries have been lost."
According to international law, an occupying power is responsible
for preserving the cultural property of those under occupation.
Indeed, the Hague Convention, which Israel ratified in 1957,
specifically calls on an occupying power to refrain from any
hostility directed against such property and from any use of such
property or its surroundings for military purposes.
Since the end of 2000, an as yet uncounted number of Palestinian
heritage sites, from Rafah in the south to Jenin in the north, have
been damaged or destroyed during Israeli military operations. Most
famously, the siege of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002
saw one of the most important sites in Christianity damaged by
Israeli gunfire. The damage there, however, pales in comparison to
that in Nablus, which has been one of the hardest hit Palestinian
cities during the Aqsa Intifada.
The old city of Nablus dates back to Canaanite times. It was
described as Shechem in the Tel El Amarna letters 1,400 BC. Some
2,600 buildings in the old city can be dated back to Ottoman times,
and some go as far back as the Mamluk and even Byzantine eras.
Over a period of three weeks in December 2003 to January 2004,
repeated Israeli incursions into the old city of Nablus left several
historic houses and buildings as well as archaeological sites
destroyed or damaged. Most notable was the damage to the Abdel Hadi
Palace and the Kakhn, Sadeq and Shabi homes in the Qaryoun
neighborhood. Israeli forces also destroyed the eastern wall of the
Salah Mosque, which was previously a Byzantine church, and the
Khadra' Mosque, previously a Crusader church.
"The destruction in Nablus has been concentrated mostly on buildings
in the old city," Naseer Arafat, president of the Association to
Protect Nablus Old Town, told PR. He said the destruction included
shops and homes inside the old city, which were either partially or
fully destroyed. "Nearly 60 buildings were completely destroyed and
an additional 250 were partially demolished. This is in addition to
the massive damage done to the old city's infrastructure. That is
our identity they are destroying. Our cultural heritage is our
identity."
The Abdel Hadi Palace dates back some 250 years. It covers an area
of over 3,000 square meters and belongs to the well-established
Abdel Hadi clan. During the invasion, the Israeli army claimed
resistance fighters were hiding inside the houses or in the tunnels
that run under the old city, and went house-to-house in search of
them.
Their claim was dismissed by Ali Touqan, director of the Nablus
library, who said the targeting of the Abdel Hadi Palace was
intentional and direct. "They put holes in the walls, a meter thick.
They just wanted to destroy it."
Touqan said Israeli claims of underground tunnels used by resistance
fighters were also completely baseless. The tunnels are there, they
have been around since the Byzantine era when they were used as
water canals, but "under no circumstances could they be used by
resistance fighters. These tunnels are a cultural legacy that the
occupation has destroyed."
Targeting identity "The main goal behind these assaults," Hamdan
Taha, director general of the antiquities department of the Ministry
of Tourism and Antiquities told PR, "is to cause political harm to
Palestinians' cultural identity. This has always been a source of
intimidation for the Zionist movement and the Israeli occupation.
And the intentional targeting of historical sites over the years is
also designed to destroy a component of future cultural, economic
development and tourism."
Taha believes the demolitions in Hebron are just one link in a chain
of a deliberate campaign to target symbols of Palestinian cultural
heritage. He pointed to over 450 villages that have been destroyed
and erased from existence in an attempt to change the historical
character of certain places with historical and archeological
significance.
If Israel continues this "path of destruction," said Taha;
"Palestinians will have no other choice then to teach future
generations about their heritage through pictures and books." In
fact, he continued, his department is preparing for the eventuality.
The antiquities department is documenting the damages incurred by
these archeological sites, he said, "in order to ensure that this
precious legacy is passed down even if Israel succeeds in wiping it
from existence."
Direct damage incurred during military operations is only part of
the story, however. According to a March 2004 study released by the
Palestinian Institute for Cultural Landscape Studies and prepared by
researchers Jamal Barghouth and Mohammed Jaradat, the separation
wall being erected by Israel in the West Bank is set to undermine
the cultural link between archeological sites in the West Bank and
surrounding archeological areas.
The West Bank is one of the richest areas in the world from an
archeological perspective. From Canaanite times up, the ancient
Greek, Mesopotamian, Persian, Roman, Byzantine and Arab Islamic
civilizations have all left traces in the ground.
According to the First Hague Convention, of which Israel is
signatory, cultural property includes archaeological finds. But no
specific mention is made of archaeological excavations by an
occupying power. That was rectified in 1999 in the Second Protocol
to the Hague Convention, which specified that an occupying power
must act to prevent archaeological excavation in occupied territory.
The second protocol entered into effect on March 9, 2004, but has
not yet been ratified by Israel.
Barghouth and Jaradat's study finds that Jewish settlements in the
West Bank have directly annexed over 924 archeological sites either
now or through future expansion plans. This number will rise,
however, to 4,264 sites and archeological landmarks, 466 of them
major archeological sites, once the wall is completed. This figure
equals 47 percent of all known major sites in the West Bank
including East Jerusalem, from a total of 1,084 sites according to
1944 British maps that surveyed archeological sites in the West
Bank.
The ideological and historical premise behind plotting the course of
the barrier in such a way, said both Barghouth and Jaradat, is that
the West Bank is considered the historical and geographical site on
which the Israelite tribes settled during the Iron Age around 1000
BC and thus where Judea and Samaria was created.
Between 1967 and 2000, the two researchers said, the northern and
central areas and even the Jerusalem area were exhaustively
surveyed, enabling Israel to determine the exact sites Jewish
tradition deemed important and that should remain under Israeli
rule. Thus, added the researchers, it is unsurprising that one of
the standards used to define the course of the wall would be
archeological sites.
"The wall constitutes a disaster to Palestinian cultural heritage,"
said Taha. "In addition to the fact that it will isolate
approximately 50 percent of archeological sites from Palestinian
territories, it will affect religious tourist activity for which
Palestine is famous. The main religious tourist sites are already
isolated. Look at Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Travel between these two
cities, which for thousands of years has been unhindered, has now
become almost impossible for Palestinians."-Published September 01,
2004CPalestine Report
Source: Palestine Report
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