OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Haaretz: Area In Hebron 'Being Cleansed Of Palestinians'

"The activity of the settlers and the army in the H-2 area of Hebron is creating an irreversible situation. In a sense, cleansing is being carried out. In other words, if the situation continues for another few years, the result will be that no Palestinians will remain there. It is a miracle they have managed to remain there until now."

This view of the situation in the Israeli-controlled area of Hebron comes from Jan Kristensen, the former head of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), who completed his one-year term of office last week. Kristensen, 58, is a former lieutenant colonel in the Norwegian army and has also held various positions in UNIFIL (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon).

H-2, the 4.3 square kilometers of Hebron assigned to Israeli control by the Hebron Agreement, contains all of the city's Jewish settlers. When the intifada began, it had 35,000 Palestinian residents. Kristensen had no exact figures for how many Palestinians have since left but he said, "more and more people are leaving the area and it is effectively being emptied. The settlers' activities, which are aimed at causing the Palestinians to leave, and the army's activities, which impose severe restrictions, create an irreversible reality. Anyone whose economic situation permits him to do so, leaves.