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3 March 2011: 17 years after Goldstein massacre, Hebron city center paralyzed

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Zlikhah Muhtasab, 49, is one of the few Palestinians still living on Shuhada Street in the center of Hebron. The street, one of Hebron 's main thoroughfares, links the north and south of the city and passes by the major markets, the Old City , the Tomb of the Patriarchs and al-Haram al-Ibrahimi, and Israeli settlement compounds. Since October 2000, Israel has forbidden Palestinians to walk or drive on the street, although no valid military order for the closure has been presented. Along with other restrictions on Palestinian movement in the area, this has led to an economic collapse of the city center. Many residents have left, and the area has become a ghost town. Over the years, the army repeatedly claimed it was about to permit Palestinians to use the street again, but this has yet to occur.

Israeli settlers, however, are allowed to move freely on the street. In a testimony she gave to B'Tselem, Zlikhah related the harassment she and her 75-year-old mother have suffered since they moved, for financial reasons, to a house on the largely deserted street in 2006. In the first year, settlers regularly threw stones at the house. After Zlikhah came home one day to discover a large amount of stones within the house, she asked the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee to assist her in installing iron grating on the windows and porches of the house for protection. The grating, which gives the house a cage-like appearance, did not assist in deterring assaults, and settlers continue to throw stones at the house from time to time, even at night.