Naftali Bennett approves new Jewish neighborhood in Hebron

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett approved on Monday the planning of a new Jewish neighborhood in the wholesale market complex in Hebron.

The market buildings will be demolished as part of the construction of the new neighborhood. New stores will be built in their place, though the rights of the Palestinians to the properties on the ground floors will remain theirs.

The location of the new neighborhood will create a sort of territorial continuum from the Cave of the Patriarchs to the Abraham Avino neighborhood and will double the number of Jews in the city.

The decision was reached after numerous discussions between Bennett and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Public Service Administration, the Shin Bet and other security agencies.

The market area was owned by Jews until the 1929 Palestinian Riots. The lands were since abandoned and therein taken by the Jordanian king, until 1967 when they were returned to Israel.

The Hebron municipality built a wholesale marketplace on the land, which was active until the 90’s. Bennett ordered that all property above the ground-floor marketplace must be “returned to Jewish hands,” according to a statement by Bennett’s spokesperson.

Democratic Union and former Meretz head MK Tamar Zandberg said that “whoever builds Jewish neighborhoods in the heart of the apartheid in Israel, instead of dismantling them, is the person who deliberately harms the future of the State of Israel.”