‘We need to fight against Israeli apartheid; we as Palestinians have a lot of responsibility to challenge it, to confront it and to work hard to make things better. Change doesn’t come by itself, you need sacrifice for it.’ Issa Amro is sitting in his modest office inside the Youth Against Settlements centre, his arms crossed over his wide chest. He is the founder of YAS, a Palestinian organization based in Hebron that pushes back against the building and the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements through nonviolent and civil resistance. ‘I live under Israeli military law,’ he says. ‘I’m a Palestinian who doesn’t have any rights in his own city; I’m not even allowed to walk in the same street with Israeli settlers.’
Amro lives in Hebron, the only city in the West Bank with Israeli settlements within it. Its Palestinian inhabitants are forced to pass through military checkpoints daily, where they are required to show their identity documents and go through humiliating security controls. The city has been divided in two since 1997, three years after an extremist settler killed 29 worshippers in the Abraham Mosque. The H1 zone is administrated by the Palestinian Authority, while H2 is under Israeli military control: here 800 Jewish settlers live in four settlements guarded day and night by soldiers. Palestinians are not allowed to walk near them and they are banned by Israeli security from using Shuhada Street, the city’s main road, forcing them to take long detours. Even going to the YAS centre is not easy if you are a Palestinian: you have to pass at least two checkpoints, go up a hill and walk through an olive grove. From there the view of the city is breathtaking, but also heartbreaking, as you can see the military checkpoints and the Israeli flags fluttering in the air of the once most important road of the city.
