“They control all aspects of our lives,” says activist Issa Amro, addressing a tour group outside his home, a large olive tree behind him. “They make it impossible for you to stay ... I don’t feel safe in my house despite the fact that I consider myself the bravest Palestinian in Hebron.”
In front of him are 28 people who have come from countries including Germany, Switzerland, Nepal, Canada and Northern Ireland. They are taking part in a trip organised by Breaking the Silence, an organisation of veteran Israeli soldiers who campaign for an end to military occupation of Palestinian territory. “Together we can make a change,” Amro continues. “You are part of the problem as countries, but as individuals you are part of the solution.”
Amro (44) is the co-founder of Palestinian activist group Youth Against Settlements. He lives on a hill called Tel Rumeida which is in H2, an area in the Palestinian city of Hebron in the West Bank, about 30km southwest of Jerusalem. It is under full Israeli military control.
Though Amro’s movement is severely limited, he uses social media to document abuses and appeal for change. He has more than 73,000 followers on X,more than 26,000 on Instagram, and another 10,000 on Facebook.
On October 7th, as the Hamas attacks that killed roughly 1,200 Israelis were ongoing, Amro says he was detained by soldiers, blindfolded, gagged, beaten and sexually assaulted. Those allegations were later reported by the New York Times, with an IDF spokesman telling them: “With respect to Mr Amro’s claims of violence on the part of the army, in the past or present, he has the option to file a complaint through the established channels”.
He says abuse has continued, with soldiers recently “kidnapping and torturing” his neighbour, because “they’re not accountable”. IDF spokespeople did not respond to this claim and to a list of other questions related to this article.
Amir Ziv, Breaking the Silence’s pedagogy co-ordinator, says he personally detained Amro several times years ago. Ziv describes his time as a soldier in Hebron, saying the military deliberately aimed to disrupt the lives of Palestinians. “When I got to Hebron I was told that every Palestinian is a potential threat. Palestinians in the occupied territories cannot be innocent,” he says.
Breaking the Silence has gathered disturbing testimonies from soldiers who served in Hebron, including one who said they would raid innocent Palestinian families’ homes in the night and carry out “mock arrests” to train new soldiers.
Push for change
Breaking the Silence’s tour in Hebron begins at the tomb of Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli-American who carried out a mass shooting in 1994, killing 29 Palestinian Muslims and injuring about 125 after he opened fire during prayers in a mosque. Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir once dressed up as Goldstein, calling the mass murderer his “hero”.
Ben-Gvir lives in Kiryat Arba, an Israeli settlement adjacent to Hebron. Now 48, he was barred from compulsory military service as a teenager because of his extreme far-right activism. The Associated Press reported that he has been convicted eight times for offences, including supporting a terrorist organisation and racism.
In a report released in August 2024, Israeli human rights organisation B’tselem said Palestinians in Israeli prisons had recounted violations including “frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation, [and] deliberate starvation”.
Nearly 10,000 Palestinians were being held by July 2024, with about half of them in so-called “administrative detention”, without charges or a chance to defend themselves. The report said the facilities were “de facto torture camps” and it was an “organised, declared” policy, under the direction of Ben-Gvir. A spokesman for Ben-Gvir did not respond to a request for comment.
The Breaking the Silence tour proceeds through parts of Hebron’s Old City that are considered a closed military zone. The Israeli flag flies from checkpoints and hangs from buildings, while Palestinian residents require special permits to enter.
Luiz Auerbaj, another Breaking the Silence guide, calls Hebron a “microcosm of the Israeli occupation”. About 600 soldiers have turned part of the city into a “ghost town” to protect just over 800 Israeli settlers, he says.
The settlers can be “very violent at times”, says Auerbaj. While Palestinians are living under military law, the settlers are judged under civilian law, generating “huge discrimination ... they’re not under the same system, they don’t have the same punishment for the same crime.”
On Shuhada Street – known as King David Street to Israelis and nicknamed Apartheid Street by Palestinians – Palestinian homes have cages across the balconies, to protect against stones thrown by settlers.
Auerbaj (32), is originally from Brazil. He explains how he first travelled to Israel as a teenager. A connection with Israel felt “very natural” to him at that time. Though he knew there was an “elephant in the room”, he found it hard to grasp what “occupation” meant. “For us, [we believed that] we have this area where the Arabs live, but unfortunately they are violent, so we do what we have to do.”
Auerbaj said he was proud to be the first soldier in his family when he was drafted in 2014. Over the next two years, he began to “ask a lot of questions”, like “how does this bring security to us? Why must we do this to Palestinians?”
When he finished with the army, it took him a few years to “start processing”. Eventually, he joined Breaking the Silence, which had been active since 2004, and became the Jewish diaspora education co-ordinator. That role is important, he says, as he believes the global Jewish community have huge power to push for change.
Slower war
While more than 40,200 Palestinians have been killed in the current conflict Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, Palestinians say there is another, slower war taking place in the occupied West Bank. Since October 7th last year, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) says at least 587 Palestinians, including 143 children, have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There were 18 Israeli fatalities in the West Bank between October 7th, 2023, and August 11th, 2024, according to UNOCHA figures.
Israeli settlers are concurrently expanding their grip – with more than 700,000 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem now.
At the same time, Amro says infrastructure is being increasingly removed from Palestinians. In his part of Hebron, they are forced to buy electricity from an Israeli company and pay more than settlers while getting less, Amro says. Water can be limited, and ambulances can struggle to gain access: he said it recently took hours for one to reach an old woman.
International medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières described Amro’s area, H2, in a report this month as “one of the most restricted areas within the West Bank”. It said 21 permanent Israeli checkpoints regulated the movement of Palestinian residents “and pose significant barriers to healthcare workers”.
International human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have called the treatment of Palestinians in the Palestinian territories and Israeli territory “apartheid”, as prohibited in international law. In July, Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories was ruled illegal by The Hague-based International Court of Justice.
Palestinians in H2 need permits to carry out basic maintenance of their properties and can’t receive visitors, Amro says. His extended family is not allowed to visit him. “For us here the occupation makes everything illegal for us and legal for the settlers,” he says.
“Not only that, we’re facing a war on our identity and our narrative.” He points to where he has painted the flag of Palestine on his wall, saying he did so because Israelis attacked the material ones so many times. “How come they occupy us and you describe Israel as the only liberal democracy in the Middle East?”
Amro is also critical of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited control over parts of the occupied West Bank but has not held elections since 2006. While there are “amazing Palestinian leaders”, he claims those in power now are “corrupt and outdated”. He would like to see an independent anti-corruption association set up to watch over the PA.
[ The Palestinian Authority’s shrinking influence in the West BankOpens in new window ]
He continues to advocate for non-violent resistance. “Blood will increase the gap between both of us,” Amro says. “Non-violence is making yourself part of the solution, not part of the problem.” He sees the Palestinian quest as one for “equal rights”, and he doesn’t care if that means one or two states.
Auerbaj, too, is hoping for change. “Everything we saw today [were] man-made decisions,” he says, as the Breaking the Silence tour ends and the bus turns back to Jerusalem. “These are man-made decisions and therefore it can be changed. That’s the message we’re willing to pass, because I really believe Israel can be different ... We Israelis are not going anywhere, the Palestinians are also not going anywhere and we must find a way to live peacefully, with diplomacy and with coexistence.”
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