AL-KHALIL, (PIC)
In a scene that summarizes the path of Israeli policy towards the occupied West Bank, the extremist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stood before a crowd of settlers on a hill south of al-Khalil, to announce what he described as the “end” of an international agreement that is around three decades old, in a step that observers and Palestinian officials saw as signaling the start of a new phase of organized Judaization of the capital of the Palestinian south.
This came during a ceremony to lay the foundation stone for a new settlement south of al-Khalil, in the presence of Israeli Army Minister Israel Katz, when Smotrich announced the complete stripping of planning and building powers from the Palestinian al-Khalil municipality and transferring them to the Israeli occupation authorities, announcing what he considered an effective cancellation of the Hebron Agreement signed in the year 1997.
An agreement on a fragile balance
The Hebron Agreement, signed on 17 January 1997, divides the city into two parts: the “al-Khalil 1” area which is under Palestinian control and includes around 80% of the city area and the majority of its population, and the “al-Khalil 2” area located under direct Israeli occupation control, and includes wide parts of the south and east of the city, most prominent of which are the ancient Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque.
Throughout the past decades, this agreement remained a legal and political pillar that formed the organizing framework for the relationship between the Palestinian Authority and the occupation authorities in the city, even though it was always marred by escalating field tensions in light of the presence of hundreds of settlers residing in the heart of the Old City surrounded by thousands of Palestinian residents.
A diplomatic denial that convinces no one
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs rushed to tone down the statements, claiming that the Hebron Agreement was not officially cancelled, and that what the Ministerial Committee for National Security (the Cabinet) approved does not exceed an amendment in the planning and building powers related to the Jewish community in the city.
However, this denial appeared contradictory to the public statements issued by the Israeli officials themselves, as the head of the West Bank Committee in the Knesset, Zvi Sukkot, explicitly confirmed that Israel has become the body authorized to approve building projects without the Palestinian Authority, acknowledging that this effectively ends the agreement regardless of official descriptions.
This step gains its weight in a broader context, as the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission revealed that the Netanyahu government has approved, since its formation around three and a half years ago, the establishment of at least 103 new settlement sites in the West Bank, distributed between new settlements, outpost settlements being settled and granted legitimacy, and independent neighborhoods.
Palestinian denunciations
On the Palestinian side, the reactions came united in their rejection, diverse in their levels. The presidency of the Palestinian Authority warned of the danger of unilateral Israeli measures that affect the signed agreements, describing them as a flagrant violation of international law, and calling on the international community, and foremost the US administration, to intervene immediately to stop what it considered a systematic undermining of the two-state solution.
On the field level, the Governor of al-Khalil, Khaled Doudin, described the decision as “terrorist” par excellence, emphasizing that the city is an occupied land that is not subject to the decisions of any Israeli government, and stressing that the Ibrahimi Mosque and the Old City are listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as two Palestinian sites, calling for intensifying the Palestinian presence in them and demanding the international community to break its silence.
As for the Minister of Awqaf and Religious Affairs, Mohammad Najem, he saw that the targeting of al-Khalil falls within a systematic plan targeting its religious and national status at the same time, calling for uniting official and popular efforts to protect the Ibrahimi Mosque as an Islamic endowment and an authentic part of the Palestinian identity that does not accept infringement.
Hamas and Jihad: A call for escalation
The Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements issued joint warnings about the repercussions of the Israeli step, considering that it is not limited to al-Khalil but rather represents a model for a path of comprehensive annexation targeting the entire West Bank.
The two movements described in two separate statements what is happening as an unprecedented escalation and an attempt to impose a new, irreversible fait accompli.
While Islamic Jihad held international and Arab parties responsible for the continuous silence towards these policies, Hamas called on the international community and the United Nations to urgently intervene to stop the Israeli measures.
Related context: The accelerating path of annexation
What is happening in al-Khalil cannot be understood in isolation from a broader Israeli context, for in last February, Smotrich himself announced the commencement of registering wide areas of West Bank lands as “state lands”, in a precedent that is the first of its kind since the occupation in the year 1967. The measures related to al-Khalil come in the context of this escalating path that redraws the map of the West Bank step by step, in the almost complete absence of any effective international deterrent.
Between an Israeli diplomatic denial that convinces no one, explicit occupation ministerial statements speaking about the cancellation of agreements, and Palestinian and international denunciations that mostly remain ink on paper, al-Khalil finds itself once again in the eye of the storm, while many wonder: Is there any real value to agreements with Israel?