Hebron mothers living in fear since mosque massacre
Hebron mothers living in fear since mosque massacre
By Wafa Amr
HEBRON (Reuter): Widad al-Jaabari and Shelli Karzen are two mothers, an Arab and a Jew, living in fear in the heart of Hebron.
Jaabari lost her husband in the Hebron mosque massacre on Feb. 25, one of 30 Moslem worshipers gunned down by Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein.
Karzen is one of 400 Jews settled among 110,000 Arabs in the occupied West Bank town. Arab gunmen have killed Jews there. Arab youngsters stone her children.
The two women have not met, but both say that living in fear is unbearable.
"I live with my children in terror for being surrounded by settlers," said Jaabari, a mother of eight still mourning her husband.
"I gather my children around me at night and we all sleep in the corridor, not in our bedrooms. We are afraid they might barge in and kill us," she said.
The Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, where Goldstein lived, is only 100 meters (yards) from her house. A fence separates the settlement from her garden. She said a Kiryat Arba road was built on land belonging to her husband's family.
Since the massacre Jaabari has kept her window shutters overlooking the settlement firmly shut.
Last week as Jaabari walked in her garden, a Jewish woman holding a baby looked at her from an apartment window and motioned with a finger across her neck as if to signal the Arab woman would be better off dead.
"I have not been able to sleep ever since from fear," Jaabari said with tears welling up.
The PLO suspended peace talks over the massacre, demanding international protection, a disarming of settlers and the dismantling of some settlements.
Karzen immigrated to Israel from the United States 10 years ago and moved a short time later with her family to the Jewish enclave of Tel Rumeida, home to only seven families, in the heart of Hebron.
"I'm not happy Palestinians are suffering, but I wish the Arab population can say the same thing," she said while her husband Uri walked into the room with a rifle strapped over his shoulder.
"We are the ones being threatened, and have protection and hide behind plastic windows...My kids get pelted with stones on their way to school and they think Arab kids are the bad guys," said Karzen, the pregnant mother of three.
Israel captured Hebron, a town holy to both Moslems and Jews, along with the rest of the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East War.
Karzen said Jews had since settled in parts of the town where they lived before being killed and forced out in Arab riots in 1929 and 1936.
"We came here because it is our home. Our roots are here, and we believe we came here as representatives of the Jewish people," she said.
Karzen said she believed Palestinians ultimately wanted Israelis out of Hebron -- and all of Israel for that matter.
Neither woman offered hope for an easy solution to the settlements issue -- or for peaceful coexistence.
"We will never live in peace as long as they are among us. They have forced themselves on us and built their homes on our land," Jaabari said.
If settlers did not leave Hebron, "Palestinian families who lost members of their families in the most brutal massacre will seek revenge," she said.