c. map No. 6 (Maritime Activity Zones), an exact copy of which is
attached to this Agreement as map No. 8 (in this Agreement “map No.
8”); are an integral part hereof and will remain in effect for the dura-
tion of this Agreement.- While the Jeftlik area will come under the functional and personal jurisdic-
tion of the Council in the first phase of redeployment, the area’s transfer to
the territorial jurisdiction of the Council will be considered by the Israeli side
in the first phase of the further redeployment phases.
Done at Washington DC, this 28th day of September, 1995.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of State, http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/22678.htm.Hebron Protocol
DOCUMENT IN CONTEXT
The broad-ranging Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—signed
by Israel and the Palestinians in September 1995 and popularly known as Oslo II—
committed Israel to pulling its army out of the Gaza Strip and major Palestinian cities
in the West Bank. The army had withdrawn from another major town, Jericho, under
an earlier agreement. By early 1996, Israel had completed most of the required with-
drawals, or in the language of diplomacy, “redeployments.” Separate provisions of the
Oslo II agreement allowed Israel to retain a military presence in parts of the West Bank
city of Hebron, which holds special significance because of historical and religious sites
revered by Jews and Muslims. These sites include the Tomb of the Patriarchs (the tra-
ditional burial place of Abraham and his family members), and the historic Ibrahimi
Mosque. After Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan during the June 1967 War,
the Orthodox Jewish group Gush Emunim (Block of the Faithful) established a settle-
ment of about 400 people in the middle of Hebron’s Old City, among some 120,000
Palestinian Arabs. Because of the presence of the Old City settlement, Oslo II divided
Hebron into two zones—one controlled by Palestinians and consisting of about 80 per-
cent of the city and the remaining 20 percent controlled by Israel. Israel was required
to withdraw its army from the Palestinian zone by March 28, 1996 (Israeli Settlement
of the Occupied Territories, p. 178; Oslo Accords, p. 213).
Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who had negotiated Oslo II while serving as for-
eign minister in the cabinet of Yitzhak Rabin, halted the Hebron withdrawal early in
1996 after a series of Palestinian suicide bombings. That temporary suspension turned
into a prolonged interruption of the Oslo peace process after the rightist Likud Party,
headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, won elections in May 1996. Netanyahu had opposed
ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS 259