Five settler families occupy homes in Hebron

Five settler families have recently moved into a building in Tal Rmeida neighborhood in the West Bank city of Hebron; the settlers claim that they purchased the building which is located near the Tal Rmeida illegal settlement outpost.

After the five new settler families moved to the Palestinian neighborhood, the total number of settler families living there arrived to twenty.

The building which the settlers occupied in the neighborhood is intended to replace the trailers which the settlers placed there.

The Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported that International organizations, said to be aided by the Palestinian Authority, are planning to bring international volunteers into a residential building as part of the Tal Rmeida Project (TRP).

The TRP reported on its website that it will be activist oriented which does not believe that only observing the military violations, settlers’ attacks and harassments are effective strategies for changing the living conditions of the Palestinian families.

“Project work will be proactive and multifaceted, directly intervening with settler and soldier actions. The goal of this work is to effect positive change in the living conditions of Palestinian Tel Rumeida residents’, at statement at the project’s website reads, “We do not believe that only witnessing the settlers and soldiers harassments, or being indifferent to the settlers’ crimes, to be an effective strategy for changing the living conditions of the Palestinian residents there”.  

 

Meanwhile, settlers in Hebron accuse the leftist organizations in Israel of “marking them as the next target of expulsion”.

 

Orit Struck, spokesman of the settler community in Hebron, claimed that the Arabs did not leave the area which is controlled by settlers as a result of actions of harassment, and claimed that they left their homes in order to move to “newer and more pleasant” residential areas in the city.

Struck also claimed that the residents started to move with the development of the city which started even before the Hebron peace deal was signed in 1997.

The Israeli online daily Haaretz reported that the settlers’ community in Hebron obtained the power of attorney from a group calling itself Kollelot Hasefardim Magen Avot. This group considers it self the successor to the Jewish community that lived in Hebron 1929; the group claims that Arabs “massacred the community in 1929”.

“Legal documents which the community own permits to rescue buildings owned by the historic Jewish community and live in them”, Struck said. Members of the community confirmed the report saying that the community currently controls one-third of the “public properties that were controlled by settlers in 1929.

“Now we have a clear way to control the rest of the buildings owned by the settlers in 1929”, Struck added.