(al-Khalil in Arabic and Hevron in Hebrew) A
Palestinian city in the southern
West Bank, located 30 km south of
Jerusalem. Est. population in 2007: 163,146. In the Old City of Hebron, there are over 500 Jewish settlers and a comparable
Israeli military presence. Tension between the settler and local Palestinian population is high, with the Israeli army and settler population severely limiting the movement and security of Palestinian residents, through evictions, checkpoints, closures, and violent attacks at the hands of settlers, leading thousands of Palestinians from the Old City of Hebron to flee. The Temporary International Presence in the City of Hebron (TIPH) has been present in the city since 1997, after requests by both Israeli and Palestinian authorities to observe and report breaches of human rights law and regional agreements. The city is home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, known in Islam as the Ibrahimi Mosque, thought to be the burial site of the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs, a site sacred to both Muslims and Jews, and the site of the 1994 Goldstein massacre. See TIPH's
website and the
website of Youth Against Settlements.