The Palestinian residents of the Israeli controlled part of Hebron have been in anguish since the 24 hours a day, seven days a week curfew was imposed on them over five weeks ago. They have been forced to stay indoor most of the days, except for the few hours per day, every three or four days when the Israeli army allows them to breath some air and walk out of their homes to stock up on necessary food supplies or check if their relatives and friends were okay. What disgusts the Palestinians most was that they knew they were placed under curfew so that the 400 Jewish settlers can move freely in their city without any problem. They see the children of the settlers hauled on buses and taken to schools in Israel every morning and then return home in the afternoon to play freely in the empty streets while their children have been denied for over five weeks the right to go to school and play with their friends. They get even more upset when they are unable to reach a doctor to take care of sick son or daughter or for pregnant women to reach hospital to deliver a baby.
Residents speak of horror stories about what goes on during curfew.
They say settlers break into their closed shops and steal their goods under Israeli army sight. And when residents try to defend their shops, the army attacks them with stun grenades, in one incident setting the cloths of an old man on fire. They spoke about a woman with appendicitis who could not go to hospital because the army would not let a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance or a taxi to enter the section of the city that was under curfew and take her to hospital. Eventually, lucky for her, a garbage truck happened to be in the area, and so her family put her in the back of the truck, with the garbage to get her out and to hospital. After four in the afternoon, she says, she takes her four children inside the house and keep them protected worried that bullets may hit their home in the exchange of gunfire.