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After visiting the Tomb of the Patriarchs, we began our walk through a section of the Old City of Hebron completely off limits to Palestinians. The area is included in the UNESCO World Heritage listing for the Old City of Hebron.
Sukkot Festival
The walk started with a quick look at the Sukkot festival that happened to be taking place that day. It was in a field just down the steps from the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
The festival featured music and dancing as well as several vendors set up under tents. Our guide, Eliyahu, gave us a few minutes to walk around the festival before gathering the group to continue the tour.
Gutnick Center
Just outside the festival was the Gutnick Center, which is a visitor center and restaurant. In 1968, it was the first settler’s building constructed in the city and functioned as the Settler’s Restaurant. The restaurant was bombed in 1974 but was closed at the time and nobody was injured. The owners then renovated the building, adding the second floor which now functions as a banquet hall. In 1995, it reopened in its current form as the Gutnick Center.
Al-Sahla Street
Next, we started to walk down the deserted al-Sahla Street, which is known to the Israelis as Emek Hebron Street. It was once a bustling part of the Wholesale Market (see below).
Along the street, Eliyahu pointed out a settler’s home built on the site of the home of two Old Testament prophets. I can’t remember which prophets.
We also spotted street signs and interpretive panels in Hebrew and English along al-Sahla Street. Although illegal, they were placed there by Israeli settlers to assert their dominance over this part of the city.
Wholesale Market
Eliyahu turned down an alley that was once part of the Wholesale Market. It was built in the early 1960s while Hebron was under Jordanian rule. The market existed until the early 1990s, when violence against Jews was at its peak.
It was closed permanently after February 25, 1994, when American-Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein (1956-1994) opened fire on Muslim worshippers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, killing 29 and injuring 125. Today, the market is a ghost town of shuttered shops.
In the center of the alley stands a memorial to Shlomo Yitzhak Shapira, an Israeli from Jerusalem. He was killed by Palestinian gunmen on September 23, 2002, while walking to the Avraham Avinu settlement. Shapira was visiting Hebron with his family for the Sukkot festival, and three of his sons were injured in the attack.
Muslim Cemetery
As we walked to Avraham Avinu, Eliyahu pointed out an Israeli military installation an a hill to the south of the city. He also showed us a Muslim cemetery across the street. The cemetery sits along a street that’s off limits to Palestinians.
We also passed some settler children in the Wholesale Market and weren’t given a very friendly reception.
