'It was never this difficult' Palestinians locked down in Hebron

Shaadi Muqtasen worries most about his children, who are going crazy with boredom after nearly four months stuck at home without school, and his dogs, who are going wild with frustration after more than 100 days caged in a tiny yard.

- Emma Graham-Hartrison Quique Kierszenbaum

His family live in the centre of old Hebron, one of the most heavily contested and militarised places in the West Bank. For Palestinians there, life all but stopped four months ago, when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.

Israeli security forces who control Muqtasen’s area – and have a guard post across the street – imposed an immediate lockdown on Palestinians, in effect house arrest even for children.

“For the first month we weren’t allowed to leave the house at all,” Muqtasen said. “If we even started to open the small grille on the door [to look out ], we could hear them cocking their guns.”

Rubbish piled up in their courtyard because they were barred from opening the door to put it out for collection. In a month, he was allowed out once, for an hour to get food for his entire family. With so little time, he just bought bags of wheat “like I was feeding animals”.

After a month, restrictions eased slightly, with residents allowed to leave home three days a week. Now they can go out every day, but still with an unofficial overnight curfew, starting 7pm. Schools remain closed, along with most local shops; one barber who attempted to reopen was beaten.

Palestinians who live in the centre of Hebron are used to violence, and a web of controls dating back more than 20 years, including bans on walking down some streets that are open to Israelis. But they say the current restrictions are unprecedented.

“Our life was difficult here, but never this difficult,” Muqtasen said. There was a curfew of sorts during the second intifada when he remembers relatives sending food to their house through a human chain over the roofs of the tightly packed old quarter.