Roar Sorensen of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, said difficult conditions in the area of the city under Israeli control had led to an exodus of what may be 15,000 of its 35,000 Palestinian residents.
The monitoring group was established with Israeli and Palestinian consent after an Israeli settler killed 29 Palestinians at a Hebron holy site in 1994. It has 71 unarmed observers from Norway, Italy, Denmark, Turkey and Switzerland who seek to minimize friction between Israelis and Palestinians in the city.
The Jewish enclave, known as "H-2" was left under Israeli control as part of a 1997 agreement with the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites). It is home to about 500 Jewish settlers, considered among the most militant in the West Bank. In all, about 130,000 Palestinians live in Hebron.
"Palestinians are moving out because it is difficult to live in H-2," Sorensen said. "It's hard to do business, hard to move around, and the area is extremely tense."
He said he believed that 15,000 Palestinians may have left the sector over the past three years, but a lack of data made a precise estimate impossible. Palestinian officials were not immediately available to comment, while a settler spokesman accused the monitoring group of being biased.
In an interview, Sorensen backed up comments made by the outgoing head of the monitoring group, Jan Kristensen, in Monday's edition of the Israeli daily Haaretz.
"There are roadblocks in the area all the time, " Kristensen told the newspaper. "Once there were more than 100 days of continuous curfew, with only brief interruptions ...The settlers go out almost every night and attack those who live near them. They break windows, cause damage and effectively force the Palestinians to leave the area."
"These are the conditions we are monitoring," Kristensen said.
Noam Arnon, a spokesman for Jewish settlers in Hebron, accused the group of being biased.
"The problem is that this organization has become the mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority," he said. "This is an organization that is hostile to Jews and to the State of Israel."
