Hebron Groom Forced From Home as Israeli Lockdown Displaces Thousands

Haidar Yahya Tamimi had spent four months getting ready for his wedding. The 27-year-old had finished preparing his home, bought new furniture, picked out his suit and sent invitations to about 1,000 guests. He was due to marry his fiancee, Ruba, on Friday. Instead, he has been forced out of his home in the al-Jalada neighbourhood of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, and the ceremony has been put off with no new date.

Tamimi is one of thousands of Palestinians displaced by an Israeli military operation in the city. It began after two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint at the western entrance of Hebron on October 23. Israeli forces killed both gunmen.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an immediate lockdown of Hebron. Israeli bulldozers demolished buildings near the site of the attack, and troops went house to house in al-Jalada and Ein Deir Baha, the neighbourhoods where the attackers lived. By Monday, Hebron's municipality said, more than 3,100 Palestinians had been forcibly displaced.

Tamimi has worked for about a year as a radiology technician at the Palestine Red Crescent Society Hospital in Hebron. A feast had been scheduled for Thursday evening, ahead of Friday's wedding. On the evening of October 23, after Hebron was declared a closed military zone, he and his family were ordered to leave along with other residents of the two neighbourhoods. They left in the middle of the night with only what they could carry.

Everything the couple had prepared for their life together remained inside the house. Tamimi was able to reach a nearby spot with a view of the property but could not get closer because of the military presence. "I looked at the house and saw that my dream was supposed to happen here, but it has been postponed indefinitely," he said. He saw Israeli soldiers around the building, and relatives showed him security-camera footage of soldiers entering the home. Its present condition is unknown. The couple must first learn when they can return before they can choose a new date.

The lockdown has also hit local commerce. Residents estimate that more than 100 businesses have been affected. Among them is Rukn al-Asala, a travel agency in al-Jalada that specialises in Muslim pilgrimage services. Its manager, Kamal al-Sharif, 35, has been unable to reach the office where he has worked with his father for 16 years.

The agency had arranged an Umrah pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia for 15 people, due to leave on Wednesday. Their passports are still in the office, and with no clear end to the lockdown, the trip is likely to be postponed or cancelled.

The office also holds seven passports that al-Sharif says arrived from the Chinese embassy on October 22, a day before the lockdown. They belong to traders who planned to travel to China on October 26. The traders have their visas but not their passports, so they have been unable to leave.

One of them, a man in his 30s who asked not to be named for security reasons, had intended to attend an exhibition in China to source equipment for his family business. His flight and hotel bookings have been cancelled, and he does not know when he will be able to obtain the products the business needs.