Place
Hebron
One of the world's oldest and most divided cities — the split Ibrahimi Mosque, Shuhada Street's ghost town, and settlers living inside a Palestinian city.
Hebron
Ancient city in the southern West Bank, Palestine, and the region’s starkest case study in division: the only city where Israeli settlers live in the middle of a Palestinian city, protected by soldiers. The city is split into H1 (Palestinian control) and H2 (Israeli military control) — H2 holds the old city and the Ibrahimi Mosque, where Abraham is buried, itself physically divided 60% synagogue / 40% mosque since the 1994 massacre of worshippers.
What Harry did
Harry arrived by bicycle from Bethlehem (about 27 km of brutal hills). In H1 he ate tender lamb and rice at a local restaurant that refused to let him over-order. Crossing the checkpoint into H2, he visited the Ibrahimi Mosque (camera left with a stranger outside — and having entered the mosque side, he was refused entry to the synagogue side), walked the ghost town of Shuhada Street under Israeli flags, drank 5-shekel hand-pressed orange juice, bought handmade keffiyehs (40 shekels) from a shopkeeper whose family shop by the mosque was shut as a military zone after October 2023, ate knafeh at a 120-year-old sweets shop, and took a rooftop tour from a homeowner who recounted killings, a Molotov attack, and refused fortunes for the house his family won’t sell. Locals repeatedly told him their message: come, film, and don’t forget us.
Practical facts
- Access to H2 and the mosque runs through military checkpoints with passport checks; visiting both the mosque and synagogue sides of the Ibrahimi complex is effectively not possible in one visit.
- Cameras aren’t allowed inside the mosque; expect questioning and arbitrary filming restrictions near settler areas (residents warn some spots are watched by cameras).
- Streets in H1 are clean and lively; the welcome is overwhelming — Harry’s warnings of hostility proved unfounded on the Palestinian side.
- Prices Harry paid: fresh orange juice 5 shekels; handmade keffiyeh 40 shekels.
- Tourism has collapsed since the war; shopkeepers depend on the few visitors who still come.
Harry’s tips
- Visit the old city with patience for checkpoints — and decide in advance which side of the Ibrahimi complex matters more to you, since seeing both is hard.
- Buy from the old-city shopkeepers — keffiyehs, knafeh — they say the visit and the footage matter to them as much as the money.
- Follow locals’ lead on where filming is safe; some corners near settlements can cause problems for them, not just you.
