Region

TRIPOLI — From radical preachers to irreverent taxi drivers, anger is spreading through Lebanon’s Sunni community towards the country’s military, adding a dangerous twist to Lebanon’s instability, already shaken by relentless bombings.

Many Sunnis accuse the military of siding with their rivals, the powerful Shiite group Hizbollah, as sectarian tensions grow in Lebanon, stoked by the civil war in neighbouring Syria. Since December, four attacks have killed five soldiers, with warnings of more to come.

The tensions add another trigger for potential conflict within Lebanon. The sectarian divide is growing increasingly explosive, with Sunnis largely backing their brethren in Syria, while Shiites and Hizbollah support the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. That violence has ricocheted into Lebanon, with Sunni militants carrying out more than a dozen bombings against Shiite areas since July, killing dozens and terrifying the country.

As Lebanon’s military moves against the militants, they risk fuelling further anger among the wider Sunni community — not because there’s much sympathy for extremists, but from the perception the army is punishing Sunnis for backing rebels while allowing Hizbollah to help Assad.

“The army doesn’t act fairly. They crush Sunnis with their feet,” said grocer Umm Zaher, 56, in a Sunni neighbourhood of the Lebanese capital Beirut. She and most Sunnis interviewed by The Associated Press declined to give their full names, fearing retaliation from the army or Hizbollah.

“The army is theirs,” said taxi driver Khaled, 32, referring to Hizbollah.

Blue flags fluttered from nearby streetlights, the symbol of a Sunni-dominated political bloc once led by assassinated Sunni prime minister Rafik Hariri.

“It’s everywhere in Sunni areas that people feel this way,” said Sunni cleric Raed Hlayhel of Tripoli.

Criticising the army was once rare. The institution is widely seen as a unifying force, drawing recruits across Lebanon’s patchwork of Christian and Muslim sects. On the street, people often address soldiers as “watan”, Arabic for “homeland”.

The army is an important economic vehicle for Sunni advancement, and they compose at least one-third of its forces, said Aram Nerguizian, an expert on Lebanon’s military at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Nevertheless, that and the offer of $3 billion to the army from Saudi Arabia, an ally of Lebanese Sunnis, has not shaken the perception among Sunnis that the army is against them.

Lebanese army officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Sunnis long have resented Hizbollah’s dominance of Lebanon’s politics and the untouchable, state-within-a-state status it enjoys. Its guerrilla force also is stronger than the military. Sunnis began souring towards the army in May 2008, when Hizbollah-loyal gunmen rampaged through Sunni areas of Beirut, after years of political disputes, and soldiers did nothing to stop them.

Sunnis now accuse Lebanon’s army of targeting their brethren funnelling weapons, helping and harbouring Syrian rebels, while ignoring Hizbollah’s actions. In June, clashes erupted between Lebanese soldiers and followers of fiery Sunni cleric Ahmad Al Asir, a prominent opponent of Hizbollah. Hizbollah supporters briefly joined the fighting alongside soldiers, reviving Sunni grievances.

The army is being pushed into an “awkward position”, said Riad Kahwaji, chief executive of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. “It is perceived to be confronting Sunni extremists, while at the same time, it seems to be collaborating with the Shiite Hizbollah group,” Kahwaji said.

Recent events underscore those tensions.

On January 24, soldiers seized 24-year-old Sunni cleric Omar Atrash, suspecting he recruited suicide bombers, smuggled explosives and planned attacks. Fellow clerics claim he was tortured into making false confessions.

The day before Atrash was arrested, soldiers shot Ibrahim Abu Meilek, 22, who they suspected of harbouring extremist Syrian rebels, local media reported. Outraged Sunnis asked why Abu Meilek was punished while Hizbollah fighters around move freely.

On January 15, soldiers killed a man during a raid in the eastern town of Kamed Al Lawz, with local media claiming he harboured Lebanon’s most wanted militant. Sunni clerics said he supported anti-Assad Syrian rebels.

Thousands of men marched in his funeral, enraged by a video showing his blood pooling around a pair of abandoned shoes.

“When the law is only applied to one side, it creates grievances,” Sunni politician Mustafa Alloush said. “What the Sunni street feels is that there’s winking towards Hizbollah, and severity toward the other side.”

Reflecting that anger, a series of attacks have targeted Lebanese soldiers. In January, gunmen in Tripoli killed two soldiers by firing a rocket at their vehicle. In mid-December, a man hurled a grenade at an army checkpoint near the southern city of Sidon. Hours later, another attacker blew himself up with a handgrenade, killing a soldier.

On Saturday, a suicide attacker driving an SUV blew himself up at an army checkpoint in the northeastern town of Hermel, killing two soldiers.

A shadowy Lebanese group inspired by Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in neighbouring Syria accused the “brutal Lebanese army” of allowing Hizbollah fighters to cross through military checkpoints.

“They do not stop here. They [Hizbollah] have handed over protection of their dens to the Lebanese army, so they can devote themselves to waging war against the Sunni Syrian people, placing the [Lebanese] army in the confrontation,” it said in a statement released Tuesday.

Growing anger has been made more dangerous because of a years-long drift by the Sunni community away from its traditional moderate leaders, in some cases to fiery preachers.

In an online recording uploaded in January, a shadowy Tripoli militant called on Sunnis to desert the army.

“Don’t be a sword that Christians and Shiites carry to stab you,” said the militant, who called himself Abu Sayyaf Al Ansari.

Retired army general Amin Hoteit dismissed accusations of discrimination.

“When Hizbollah fighters go to Syria, they cross checkpoints as civilians. They aren’t taking their weapons to Syria. They have no reason to be halted,” he said.

Sunnis, on the other hand, try to move around Lebanon with their weapons. “So if they aren’t stopped, it would be a problem,” he said.

The army tiptoes around Hizbollah in part because forcing Shiite soldiers to battle the group could splinter the military. The army cleaved between Muslims and Christians during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990. Hizbollah officials also have worked closely with Lebanon’s military intelligence, Nerguizian said.

Some wonder how long the uneasy peace will last.

In Beirut, taxi driver Khaled sat with his friend Mohammed, 42, joking about nightclubs and cursing Shiites.

Both were army conscripts; despite their growing frustration, they supported the military — with a caveat.

“Nobody has the intention to harm the army,” Mohammed said. “As long as they don’t attack us.”

BEIRUT — The leader of a powerful Al Qaeda-linked group in Syria gave a rival breakaway group a five-day ultimatum to accept mediation by leading clerics to end infighting or be “expelled” from the region.

The ultimatum announced in an audio recording by the leader of the Nusra Front aims to end months of deadly violence between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other Islamic factions. The fighting has killed hundreds of people since the beginning of the year and is undermining their wider struggle against President Bashar Assad.

It comes two days after the killing of Abu Khaled Al Suri, who had acted as Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahri’s representative in Syria. Rebels and activists believe he was assassinated by two suicide attackers from ISIL.

Both the Nusra Front and ISIL are considered terrorist organisations by the United States.

Zawahri has named the Nusra Front Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria and broken ties with the Islamic State, which has increasingly clashed with rebel brigades in opposition-held areas of Syria. The Islamic State has angered other factions with its brutal tactics and campaign to Islamise areas under its control in the northeast.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in the fighting between the Islamic State and rebel groups, including the Nusra Front.

Abu Mohammed Al Golani, the Nusra Front leader, suggested in the audio recording arbitration by clerics to stop the infighting. He warned the Islamic State that it would be driven from Syria and “even from Iraq” if it rejected the results of arbitration. He did not elaborate on how his group might do that.

“We are waiting for your official answer within five days of issuing this statement,” Golani said in the audio message posted on militant websites. “By God, if you reject God’s judgement again, and do not stop your arrogant overlording over the Muslim nation, then [we] will be forced to launch an assault against this aggressive, ignorant ideology and will expel it, even from Iraq.”

Golani suggested the arbitration be conducted by three senior Al Qaeda ideologists, including two imprisoned in Jordan and one imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. He did not say how they will handle the arbitration while they are in detention.

Syria’s conflict began with largely peaceful protests in March 2011 and gradually descended into civil war. Islamic extremists including foreign fighters have joined the war against Assad, playing an increasingly powerful role in the effort to topple him.

More than 140,000 people have died in the past three years, according to opposition activists.

On Tuesday, the chief of the United Nations relief agency supporting Palestinian refugees spoke of a rare visit he paid a day earlier to the besieged Palestinian camp of Yarmouk in Damascus.

Filippo Grandi, the commissioner general of UNRWA, said the extent of damage to the refugees’ homes in Yarmouk was shocking.

“The devastation is unbelievable. There is not one single building that I have seen that is not an empty shell by now,” he said in neighbouring Beirut.

The state of those still in the camp was even more shocking.

“It’s like the appearance of ghosts,” he said of the people coming from within Yarmouk near a distribution point he was allowed to reach.

“These are people that have not been out of there, that have been trapped in there not only without food, medicines, clean water — all the basics — but also probably completely subjected to fear because there was fierce fighting.

Grandi welcomed last week’s UN Security Council resolution calling for immediate access for humanitarian aid to all areas of Syria. He said that the resolution, unanimously adopted by the Security Council, “gives us a tool to argue in favour of access that is stronger than any other tool we’ve ever had before in Syria”.

He said it’s too early to say what effect the resolution has had on the ground, but that “everybody has to comply”. Both sides have hindered access in the past, he added.

UNRWA shipments to Yarmouk were cut for months, leaving residents to suffer from crippling shortages of food and medicine. Since last month, small shipments resumed, although they remain intermittent.

More than 100 people have died in the area since mid-2013 as a result of starvation and illnesses exacerbated by hunger or lack of medical aid, according to UN figures.

Yarmouk, located in southern Damascus, is the largest of nine Palestinian camps in Syria. Since the camp’s creation in 1957, it has evolved into a densely populated residential district just eight kilometres from the centre of Damascus. Several generations of Palestinian refugees have lived there.

Grandi said around 18,000 of the camp’s original 160,000 Palestinian refugees are still inside Yarmouk.

CAIRO — Egypt’s interim president chose the outgoing housing minister, a construction magnate from the era of ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak, as his new prime minister on Tuesday, some two months ahead of key presidential election.

Adli Mansour named the 65-year-old Ibrahim Mehlib, who had for more than a decade led Egypt’s biggest construction company, Arab Contractors, to replace veteran economist Hazem Al Beblawi, who resigned on Monday.

The swift replacement came after a spike in workers’ strikes across the country and the government’s failure to deliver on promises to increase public sector wages.

Since Mubarak’s ouster in a 2011 uprising, persistent turmoil has sapped investment and tourism, draining the country of its main sources of foreign currency. 

The military’s removal of Mubarak’s successor, Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last summer, and the subsequent street violence has deepened the country’s economic woes.

While the anti-Islamist oil-rich Gulf countries have poured in billions of dollars in grants and loans to boost the Egyptian economy, tens of thousands of textile workers, doctors, pharmacists and even policemen have gone on strike. Many fear unrest ahead of the upcoming presidential elections.

Installing a new government, weeks ahead of the vote, appeared to be paving the way for outgoing defence minister Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who led the army’s overthrow of Morsi, to run for the presidency. A government official said Sisi will be part of the new cabinet, despite heated speculations.

Sisi must leave the military and take off his uniform if he is to run for president. A cult of personality has grown around him and most observers expect he would sweep the vote if he runs.

Minutes after the official announcement was made at the presidency, Mehlib told reporters that his Cabinet members will be “holy warriors” in the service of Egyptians. He said he will form his Cabinet within three days.

Mehlib said that his top priority is to improve Egyptians’ living standards, combat terrorism and restore security in order to attract investment and boost the economy. This he said would pave the way for presidential election.

“God willing, the presidential election will pass and will take place in proper conditions of safety, security, transparency,” he said, adding: “The priority is to work day and night... anyone in the Cabinet will be a holy warrior to achieve the goals of the people.”

Born in 1949, Mehlib is a graduate of Cairo University’s school of engineering. He rose through the ranks of Arab Contractors over several decades becoming its top manager for 11 years before resigning in 2012.

Mubarak appointed him to the upper house of parliament, a toothless consultative body called the shura council, in 2010. He was also a member of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party, disbanded after the 2011 revolt.

The new Cabinet comes as Morsi supporters and Brotherhood members face mass trials and imprisonment.

Most recently, courts sentenced 220 mostly Islamist Morsi supporters to up to seven years imprisonment for instigating violence and holding protests without a permit.

The three Alexandria courts issued verdicts in separate cases on Tuesday, all related to demonstrations held to protest Morsi’s removal last summer.

Former Islamist lawmaker Sobhi Saleh was among 134 who were sentenced to three years prison and fined nearly $7,000 each for inciting violence and holding protests in August. The month was Egypt’s bloodiest in decades as security forces unleashed a heavy crackdown on protest camps that hundreds dead.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister on Tuesday refused to confirm whether his country carried out an air strike along the Syrian-Lebanon border, but said he would do everything possible to protect the security of Israeli citizens.

Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his vague answer hours after Lebanon’s state news agency reported that Israeli aircraft carried out two air strikes late Monday. While Israel’s military refused to comment, Israel has carried out similar air strikes in the past on suspected weapons shipments believed to be bound from Syria to Hizbollah fighters in Lebanon.

At a news conference with the visiting German chancellor, Angela Merkel, he said Israel’s policy is not to discuss what others claim it did.

“We do all that is needed to protect the security of Israeli citizens,” he said.

Israel and Hizbollah fought a monthlong war in 2006 that ended in a stalemate. Israeli officials believe Hizbollah has restocked its arsenal with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, some of which are capable of striking virtually anywhere in Israel.

Although Israel has refrained from taking sides in the Syrian civil war, Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to take action to prevent Hizbollah from obtaining “game changing” weapons from its ally Syria. Past Israeli air strikes are believed to have targeted Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles and guided missiles from Iran. Israel has never confirmed the air strikes.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said the air raids took place near Nabi Sheet, a remote village in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. The agency did not say what was targeted in the attack. The porous border is frequently used by fighters and smugglers to move people and weapons between Lebanon and Syria. Hizbollah has a strong presence in the area. Arab media reports said Hizbollah had suffered casualties, though neither the group nor the Lebanese military confirmed an air strike had actually taken place.

Earlier this week, Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, accused Iran, a key backer of Syria and Hizbollah, of “handing out torches to the pyromaniacs”. He spoke during a tour of the Golan Heights, a strategic area near Syria and Lebanon.

“Right now we’re in the Golan Heights and it seems quiet and peaceful. I suggest that everyone keeps in mind that underneath this quiet, a storm is brewing — day, night and in every setting,” Gantz said. “We have very advanced abilities to deal with the security challenges in this region. This comes alongside improving response at the operational level, and acting speedily in every sphere: air, sea, ground, intelligence and all the support systems that work with them.”

Eyal Ben-Reuven, a former deputy head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command, said he doubted Hizbollah would retaliate since it had its hands full fighting the Syrian civil war. Having said that, he said Hizbollah was still a dangerous foe and it was imperative that Israel maintain its ability to operate freely in the skies and in the seas and block any more advanced weapons from reaching Hizbollah.

“Israel has always stayed as the main objective for Hizbollah and Iran,” he said. “A terror organisation gets these kinds of capabilities not for deterrence, but for acts. This is the difference between states and organisation. This is something that we have to keep in our hands to prevent this kind of transfer of game-changing weapons,” he said.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The leaders of Israel and Germany acknowledged Tuesday they don’t see eye to eye on how to deal with Iran’s nuclear programme as negotiations between Tehran and world powers proceed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes dismantling the programme is the best way to prevent Iran from developing an atomic bomb. The six world powers negotiating with Tehran, including Germany, have demanded significant cuts in its nuclear programme.

When asked at a press conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel if Germany, a key Israeli ally, and the other world powers would accept Netanyahu’s position, he replied “probably not”.

“They talked about the possibility of some enrichment and I think it’s a mistake,” Netanyahu said, seated next to Merkel. “If the world is serious about having Iran with civilian nuclear energy and not having Iran with military nuclear capability, then they don’t need any enrichment, and they don’t need any centrifuges.”

Germany, along with the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, have been pursuing talks meant to roll back Iran’s nuclear programme. They ended their last session with a plan to meet again next month.

Merkel said the current situation was not ideal, but that it was preferred over allowing Iran to continue to charge forward with its programme unchecked.

“Clearly, there is a different way of looking at this, whether these negotiations should be conducted. We have decided to take this path, that enrichment is only taking place at a low level, but enrichment is taking place,” she said.

The talks are designed to build on a first-step deal that commits Iran to initial nuclear curbs in return for some easing of sanctions. The deal can be extended by mutual consent after six months.

Netanyahu has been an outspoken critic of the international negotiations, saying that Iran has been given significant relief while making few concessions of its own.

Israel views Iran’s nuclear programme as an existential threat, citing Iran’s repeated calls for Israel’s destruction, its long-range missile programme and its support for violent anti-Israel groups like the Hizbollah in Lebanon.

Iran says its programme is for peaceful purposes.

Merkel and most of her ministers are on a two-day trip to Israel. Germany is Israel’s closest European ally and holds an annual joint Cabinet session with its Israeli counterparts. The meetings highlight the strong bond between Israel and Germany seven decades after the Holocaust, when Nazi Germany killed six million Jews. Germany is also a key Israeli trade partner.

The countries are signing six agreements, including a deal whereby German embassies will offer consular assistance to Israelis in countries where Israel has no embassy of its own and an agreement allowing young Israelis to work in Germany.

MOGADISHU — Somalia’s 2011 famine is over. Militants have been pushed out of Mogadishu. Political progress is being made. And yet the UN and Somali government are pleading with international donors to help a country they say is still in crisis.

Aid groups, pressed to respond to emergency situations in Somalia in recent years, have not been able to put the time or resources into building the country’s systems, the UN’s aid chief for Somalia said Tuesday.

Many in the country remain in dire circumstances.

“We have 50,000 children at the doorstep of death,” because of severe malnourishment, Philippe Lazzarini said.

International donors, squeezed by the continuing crisis in Syria and new emergencies in South Sudan and Central African Republic, have given less money to Somalia.

Donors also have continuing concerns about the theft and corruption of aid money in a country with less effective government oversight of money.

Lazzarini argues that Somalia’s health indicators are even more dire than those in South Sudan or the Central African Republic, two nations getting more headlines in recent months. Somalia, he said, suffers from an aid-giving bias from donors because it has been suffering for so long. In addition, if donor funds drop off now, it could undermine the fledgling state building process, he said.

“While the situation is in no way comparable to the famine, we are still in a situation comparable to just before the famine. We need to be sure people can absorb future shock,” Lazzarini said. “The work is half done. If we stop now the gains will be lost.”

The UN is asking for $933 million for its 2014 Somalia aid operations. It says 2.9 million people need life-saving assistance.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, meanwhile, told journalists on Monday that Somalia needs to see donors who pledged $2.4 billion in assistance at a conference in Brussels last year make good on those promises.

Mohamud’s government faces donor doubts, however, because of persistent corruption. A report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea this month accused the government of diverting arms meant for the military to private militias and even an Al Shabaab commander who could help Mohamud consolidate power in his home region. 

TEHRAN — An Iranian schoolteacher has innovated an amusing way of encouraging young children to say their daily prayers — robotics.

Akbar Rezaie, 27, attended private robotics classes and learned to develop and assemble customised humanoid robots.

He teaches the Koran to boys and girls at Alborz Elementary School in the town of Varamin, 35 kilometres southeast of Tehran.

A Western dancing and singing doll first sparked in his mind the idea of building a local robot to present religious practice to his students.

“Once I was at a family gathering where there was a little girl playing with a doll that could dance and sing. I saw her watching the doll passionately and it made me contemplate on a making a device that can be used for both religious and entertaining purposes,” he told AP Television.

He built the robot at home with basic tools and gave it the designation “Veldan”, a Koranic term meaning: “Youth of Heaven.”

Veldan is a humanoid robot constructed using an educational kit from the Korean robot manufacturer Robotis Bioloid.

By applying some mechanical modifications such as adding two extra engines, Akbar managed to let the robot perform praying movements, such as prostration, more easily.

“It was so exciting to me to see a robot pray. I have decided to always say my prayers too,” said Narges Tajik, a third grader at Alborz School said.

He describes the robot as an educational assistance to teachers and believes that it has so far been successful in attracting students and should be mass-produced.

“As you see the children’s reaction in their faces, you realise how interesting it is to them to see how the science of robotics has been beautifully used for a religious purpose and I am sure it will be greatly effective in teaching them how to pray,” he said.

He has formally registered the robot’s invention patent and its intellectual rights at Iran’s State Organisation for Registration of Deeds and Properties, a body in charge of recognising inventions.

WASHINGTON — The United States pressed Iraq Monday to explain media reports that it had signed a contract to buy arms from Iran, a move forbidden under a United Nations embargo.

“We’ve certainly seen those reports. If true, this would raise serious concerns,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

A deal signed in November in which Iraq would buy $195 million in arms from Iran was reported by Reuters in Baghdad Monday.

Psaki said that “any transfer of arms from Iran to a third country is in direct violation” of the UN embargo.

“We are seeking clarification on this matter from the government of Iraq and to ensure that Iraqi officials understand the limits that international law places on arms trade with Iran,” she added.

The contract with Iran would have been signed just after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki visited Washington requesting American military aid in fighting Al Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups.

In early January, Iran’s Deputy Chief-of-Staff General Mohammad Hejazi said that his country was ready to provide military equipment and advice to Iraq as it battles Al Qaeda. Maliki payed a visit to Iran one month later.

To help Iraq fight Al Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups, such as the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Washington has recently promised to speed up its delivery of Hellfire missiles and surveillance drones. The Pentagon is ready to sell more missiles and 24 Apache attack helicopters.

“We certainly view the government of Iraq as a partner in the fight against terrorism and we’re committed to supporting them in this fight,” Psaki said.

She added that the United States has provided more than $15 billion in equipment, services and training to Iraqi armed services and security.

TEHRAN — A senior Iranian military official said Tuesday that the Islamic republic has analysed Israeli strikes during the 2006 war in Lebanon to boost its own defence capabilities against the US and Israel.

Iran sees Israel as its arch-nemesis. Israel fought a 2006 war against Iran’s ally, the Lebanese group Hizbollah. Israel and the US have not ruled out a military option against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali, who heads a unit in charge of civil defence, said Iran sent a team to Lebanon to study strikes during the 2006 war and changed its defence plans accordingly.

“After Hizbollah’s 33-day war, we sent a team to Lebanon and probed the models of Israel’s attack on Lebanese buildings and collected 5,000 photos of all the destroyed buildings,” the daily Kayhan quoted Jalali as saying Tuesday.

Jalali said Iranian military officials learned after analysing the package that tall buildings collapsed not because of a bomb’s power, but the engineering technique used to bring it down.

Iran has employed what it calls “passive defence”, measures to minimise the effects of damage caused by attacks.

It has built underground nuclear facilities, such as the Fordo uranium enrichment site, which it says is buried under 90 metres of rock for maximum protection from aerial attack.

Jalali told military officials that Iran has also adopted a new military doctrine to neutralise any possible plans by the US to attack the Islamic republic.

“It took three years to develop the new doctrine to confront the US,” he said. He says the new doctrine made Iran spread out its installations and combat forces to minimise damage in a possible war.

“We changed the deployment of military forces from a mass concentration to managed format,” he said.

HEBRON, Palestinian Territories — Twenty years on, the massacre of 29 Muslims by a Jewish extremist as they prayed in a West Bank mosque still haunts Mohammed Abu Al Halawa, a survivor who was left a paraplegic.

On February 25, 1994, Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein used an assault rifle to gun down worshippers in the Ibrahimi Mosque — revered by Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs — in the heart of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, before he was beaten to death by those who escaped his hail of bullets.

Abu Al Halawa, 53, resides a mere 400 metres from Goldstein’s grave in the Kiryat Abra settlement where he had lived, adjoining Hebron’s old city.

“I remember the massacre at every moment and am physically still affected by it — it paralysed me for life, and I’m still in a lot of pain and need regular medical treatment,” he said from his wheelchair.

“It pains me whenever I see settlers dancing next to the grave of the criminal who left me disabled,” he added, bitter that his attacker was still honoured by some extremists.

And with a physical disability, the draconian security measures and checkpoints imposed by the occupying Israeli army on Hebron following the massacre are all the more arduous for Abu Al Halawa.

Hebron’s main street was partially closed to Palestinians after the massacre, and six years later, at the outset of the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, the army declared it a “closed military zone”, restricting Palestinian access to residents of the immediate area — and then on foot only.

Palestinians held a protest last Friday to demand Shuhada Street be reopened, and an exchange of stone-throwing by some demonstrators and rubber bullets and tear gas by police left a dozen demonstrators injured.

The occupation is felt as strongly as ever today around the site of the 1994 massacre, and the security measures have put many worshippers off praying at the historic site.

Electronic gates, airport-style security and searches by soldiers of those heading to the Ibrahimi Mosque detract from any feeling of reverence, and the number of Muslims going to pray has diminished, according to local religious officials.

Adel Idris, who was the mosque’s imam on the day of the massacre, remembers it vividly.

“I’ll never forget what happened. Every day that I enter the shrine to pray I get flashbacks of the scene — the criminal opening fire, the roar of the gun and screams of worshippers... that was an indescribably awful moment,” he said.

Worship at the flashpoint site is split between the two faiths, with an area for Jewish visitors and one for Muslims.

The director of Hebron’s Islamic religious affairs, Taysir Abu Sneineh, said that “entering the mosque to pray has become much more difficult since the massacre”.

“They [the Israeli army] are punishing the victims!”

Goldstein was a member of a banned racist group, which advocates the forcible expulsion of all Arabs from the biblical “Greater Israel”.

The flashpoint city of Hebron, home to nearly 200,000 Palestinians, also comprises some 80 settler housing units in the centre of town housing about 700 Jews who live under Israeli army protection.