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Hebron today encapsulates one of the most intense forms of Israeli control in the West Bank, particularly around the Ibrahimi Mosque, where the city is no longer managed as a normal urban space, but as an area being remade through checkpoints, closures, urban changes and daily restrictions. In this narrow space, religious sanctity intersects with security calculations and annexation projects, turning the details of everyday life into part of a broader architecture aimed at the place, its meaning and the Palestinian presence within it.
Since 1994, with the cumulative transformations affecting the Ibrahimi Mosque and its surroundings, followed by the expansion of the checkpoint system, restrictions on movement, the redistribution of public space, and ultimately urban and architectural changes inside the Old City, a complex structure of control has taken shape in Hebron. A structure that extends from security to the economy, daily life, social relations and the religious symbolism of the place.
This interview, conducted by NoonPost with engineer Issa Amro, founder of the Youth Against Settlements movement, a human rights and youth activist, and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, begins by unpacking this deep structure: from Israeli control over the Ibrahimi Mosque, to the checkpoint system, to the reshaping of the Old City, and ultimately to a broader question about the nature of the transformation underway in the West Bank, and whether Hebron represents a concentrated model of a future being reproduced elsewhere.
What is the significance of repeatedly banning the call to prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque? Can it be read as part of a battle over symbolic and religious sovereignty?
Since 1994, the occupation has worked systematically to erase the Palestinian and Islamic identity of the Ibrahimi Mosque, as part of a project aimed at gradually turning it into a Jewish synagogue. This process is not limited to measures inside the mosque alone, but extends outside it as well, through a series of policies designed to reduce the number of Muslims coming to it, while increasing the number of Jewish visitors by providing free buses from different parts of Israel, alongside broad publicity campaigns and the organization of ongoing events, celebrations and activities inside the site.
At the same time, increasing restrictions and difficulties are imposed on Muslims that hinder their access to the mosque, in an effort to weaken their presence there. The call to prayer is one of the most prominent features of the Ibrahimi Mosque and of its Islamic, Arab and Palestinian identity, and therefore the occupation does not want the call to prayer to be heard in the mosque’s surroundings or for its sound to emerge from this place.
Banning the call to prayer is not a new or exceptional measure, but a recurring policy. The occupation prevents it on Jewish holidays and on various occasions whenever it has the opportunity. But the deeper problem is that the room from which the call to prayer is made is located in the section continuously controlled by settlers, meaning the muezzin must reach that room to perform his task.
Over the past years, the muezzin has been subjected to a series of violations, from being detained at checkpoints and prevented from reaching the site, to being assaulted by settlers during the call to prayer, to the refusal to maintain the loudspeakers, in a clear attempt to weaken and undermine the presence of the adhan.
The most dangerous and relatively new development, however, is what has been happening over the past 11 days, as the occupation works to completely alter the religious features of the Ibrahimi Mosque, a point of extreme seriousness. The mosque’s old roof is being removed and replaced with a new one, while the room for the call to prayer lies within the area where this work is being carried out, leading to the muezzin being barred from reaching it under the pretext of the ongoing works.
This reveals that what is happening is not merely about security or technical procedures, but falls within a broader context of religiously and symbolically reshaping the site in service of a project to control it.
After decades of closure, partition and checkpoints, is what is happening in Hebron still understood as security management, or are we facing an advanced form of de facto annexation?
In fact, the policies of closure and confiscation inside the Ibrahimi Mosque and its surroundings began after the 1994 Baruch Goldstein massacre. The irony is that the current from which this extremist emerged, which remained on the margins of Israeli politics for years, is now present within the government itself, pushing through declared and undeclared tools, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly toward the Judaization of the site and the continuous alteration of its identity.
In 2010, Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the Ibrahimi Mosque was one of the most important Jewish religious sites in the world, and since then the steps to alter its features have accelerated. These changes began from the outside through the addition of new gates, checkpoints and an electric elevator, the construction of external bathrooms, and the complete transformation and Judaization of the outer courtyards.
Today we are talking about full Israeli control over nearly 70% of the Ibrahimi Mosque, including the outer and inner courtyards, and this reflects the scale of the transformation that has taken place over the past years.
But the more dangerous shift began to emerge more openly from the end of 2022, with the arrival of the current government. The official directly responsible for the mosque is usually an officer from the Border Police, and the Border Police report directly to Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, known for his extremist views, his connection to the ideology of the Kach movement, and figures from that current such as Baruch Goldstein, in addition to his political ties with settlers in Hebron.
Since then, it has become clear that the Ibrahimi Mosque is no longer being managed solely according to a military logic, but according to a logic of Israeli civil sovereignty. This became especially evident during the coronavirus period, when Israeli authorities applied their civil laws inside the mosque, imposing specific limits on the number of Muslim worshippers, reflecting the site’s integration into the Israeli legal system.
One of the clearest indicators of this annexation is that the guards of the Ibrahimi Mosque themselves have come under Israeli civil law, being banned from the mosque for a week or two by civil decisions, as happens at Al-Aqsa Mosque, without military orders. This is an extremely dangerous development because it means transferring the administration of the site from a temporary military system to a permanent civil legal system.
In addition, a settler manager for the mosque has been appointed from the Kiryat Arba settlement, along with committees and engineers overseeing the site, in a step that confirms the entrenchment of direct Israeli control over it.
At the level of the city as a whole, the picture is not much different. It can be said that Hebron is, in practice, undergoing gradual and clear annexation, especially after statements by ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich and Israel Katz about ending the Hebron Protocol, and preventing Hebron municipality from carrying out its role in restoration, planning, issuing permits and even providing services in areas that are originally part of the agreement.
All of this confirms that we are no longer dealing with temporary security management, but with a project of actual and gradual annexation that is reshaping the place and sovereignty over it on the ground.
If annexation is usually understood as an openly declared political decision, how is it being practiced in Hebron without an official declaration, through daily measures and administrative policies?
The cancellation of the Hebron Protocol was recently announced, alongside talk of new construction projects in the heart of the city and permits being issued by Israeli authorities rather than Hebron municipality. This in itself reflects a fundamental shift in the logic of governance, with administrative and planning control coming directly under the occupation rather than within Palestinian frameworks.
This path has also been politically affirmed through statements by ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich and other ministers in the Israeli government, in addition to Cabinet decisions in recent months indicating the end of the Hebron Protocol. What is happening on the ground from settlement expansion inside H1 areas to changes around the Ibrahimi Mosque reflects that reality has moved beyond the framework of the old agreements toward the imposition of broader and clearer Israeli control over the city and its surroundings.
What is happening is clear and declared de facto annexation of the Ibrahimi Mosque and the surrounding area.
How have checkpoints shifted from military tools into a system of rule that reshapes Palestinians’ lives and presence in the Old City?
To begin with, it can be said that checkpoints in the West Bank do not exist for security reasons as officially claimed, but are used for political reasons tied to controlling and restricting the lives of Palestinian residents. A checkpoint does not function as a traffic-regulation point, but as an instrument of occupation based on force, used to impose control, disrupt daily life, humiliate residents and sever connections between Palestinian areas.
This pattern is repeated throughout the West Bank, but it appears more clearly and intensely in Hebron because of the large number of checkpoints there. According to UN statistics, in 2025 there are about 34 checkpoints per square kilometer inside the city, in addition to more than 100 movement obstacles within the H2 area, a very large number for a relatively small area.
The function of these checkpoints is not limited to restricting movement, but extends to separating areas socially, politically and geographically, and preventing Palestinians from reaching their holy sites, foremost among them the Ibrahimi Mosque, thereby helping impose a gradual reality of Judaization and control.
They also function as tools of intimidation, terror, humiliation and exclusion, precisely determining who is allowed to pass. Entry through these checkpoints is not open, but tied only to residence within specific closed areas. As a result, even relatives, colleagues or people working in different professions cannot cross, or else they face arrest, beatings or punishment if they try to pass through irregular routes.
In this sense, we are not talking about “annexing the land with its locals,” but about annexing the land while keeping the locals under severe restrictions what can be described as “annexation without annexing the locals.” This reality has been directly reflected in people’s lives and has led to new waves of displacement in recent years.
For example, in the al-Baraka neighborhood near the Ibrahimi Mosque, the number of Palestinian families before Oct. 7 was around 65, while only about 30 families remain today, as a result of ongoing pressure and the deterioration of living conditions caused by this system.
Is the Old City being emptied of its residents through a policy of slow attrition rather than direct displacement?
This is not being done through direct expulsion from homes. Official Israeli discourse speaks of “voluntary migration,” but in reality what is happening in Hebron is a form of indirect and systematic migration.
People are not physically expelled from their homes, but conditions are created that make staying difficult and unlivable: difficulty accessing water and basic services, the absence of a sense of security, and a lack of privacy, alongside constant surveillance inside and outside the home, including cameras, monitoring devices and nearby checkpoints.
This reality is also reflected in social and family life, as residents feel they are under constant surveillance, with daily friction and humiliation at checkpoints, and the accompanying violations that affect private family life.
In this sense, direct displacement is not being carried out; rather, an environment hostile to residents is being produced, making the continuation of normal life in these areas nearly impossible, and gradually pushing people to leave.
And although this policy is especially clear in Hebron, it is not confined to the city alone, but is practiced in different forms across multiple areas of the West Bank, with the aim of creating a new demographic reality through indirect pressure rather than direct forced evacuation.
If this reality is reshaping life on the ground, are we in fact witnessing a shift from “managing the population” to “reshaping the place”?
Of course. In reality, work is clearly underway to reshape the place, especially around the Ibrahimi Mosque. For example, the southern area of the mosque is completely closed, and entry through the Abu al-Rish checkpoint toward the mosque is not allowed.
At the same time, a new settlement is being built in the old Bab al-Baladiya area over an area of about 1,000 square meters, which is choking the northern side of the mosque, so that large parts of its surroundings — the north, south, west and part of the east — become fully closed or besieged.
This means the place is in fact being reshaped, not only through security control, but also through settlement projects and changes in the population structure. There are areas that once included around 1,000 Palestinian families, and that number may decline very sharply if this pattern of pressure continues.
The change is not limited to the demographic dimension alone, but also extends to the aesthetic and heritage dimension, as the features of the place are being gradually altered, including its colors and landmarks.
One of the most dangerous developments today is that the new roof of the Ibrahimi Mosque has been built according to a design bearing the symbolism of the Star of David, so that the surface of the mosque appears in that form. This is not merely an engineering change or ordinary restoration, but a real alteration of the site’s features and visual identity, and it represents part of a broader process of reshaping its religious and historical symbolism.
If Hebron represents the most complete model of Israeli control inside the West Bank, can this model be generalized to other cities in the future?
The Hebron model can be described as a “microcosm” or a “pilot model,” as the occupation uses it to test and implement its policies on the ground. Many tools of control, such as surveillance systems and checkpoints, were first developed and tested in Hebron before being transferred and applied in other areas of the West Bank, as well as in Jerusalem, and perhaps in the future inside historic Palestine in mixed cities.
This is what can be called the “generalization of the model,” meaning transferring the Hebron experience to other geographic arenas. This has already appeared in some cases, such as Huwara, where similar policies were applied in terms of checkpoint closures, the shutting of shops, and the division of movement between roads designated for settlers and others for Palestinians the same structure that was applied in Hebron.
In this sense, Hebron is not an isolated case, but a laboratory for testing policies that are later generalized to other places.
In light of this reality, where do Palestinian tools of confrontation stand legally, popularly and internationally?
We Palestinians are orphans. We do not have a real leadership capable of confronting settlement expansion and confronting the occupation, and the current leadership does not even allow the formation of any alternative leadership capable of confronting settlement expansion and the Israeli occupation.
It can be said that the core problem today lies in the Palestinian political structure itself: the absence of a unified leadership capable of action has made the capacity for confrontation limited, in a reality that does not allow the formation of genuine political alternatives.
The Palestinian body also suffers from a state of deep weakness as a result of the declining role of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its transformation into an entity unable to keep pace with the challenges or strengthen steadfastness, in addition to the continuing political division among Palestinian forces, factions and institutions, which has weakened the collective capacity for confrontation.
This structural weakness has given the occupation broader room to move and implement its policies without real cost, despite the existence of legal and international tools that could have been activated more effectively, such as the International Criminal Court, the United Nations, as well as diplomatic, parliamentary and media work at the global level.
At the same time, there are important internal tools represented in strengthening steadfastness on the ground, documenting violations, and reinforcing the Palestinian presence in threatened areas, especially in Hebron and the rest of the West Bank.
But there remain fundamental problems within the Palestinian reality itself, most notably administrative and legal gaps, such as the failure to register land in Area C, which the occupation has exploited to reshape the geographic reality and seize more powers.
There are also other internal factors related to poor governance, such as favoritism, corruption and the appointment of unqualified people, in addition to deeper political factors, all of which have contributed to weakening the Palestinian structure and its ability to confront.
Despite that, there remains a belief that unifying efforts and involving young people and professionals in managing different files can make a real difference, because the capacities exist within Palestinian society, but they need a political and administrative environment that allows them to be activated rather than obstructed.