(Saeed, on the roof top of his family's house, contested by settlers next door.)
"Jerusalem's problems are easy compared to Hebron's," Bashar, a quiet-voiced Palestinian who's currently looking for work, said.
We were standing on a roof top overlooking the Jewish settlement that has occupied the center of the old Arab Souk (market) since 1980. Adjacent to the rooftop is a modern looking settler's building.
The Palestinian residents say the settlers next door tried to buy their building, offering first half a million dollars, then a million and when the residents still refused, a flaming molotov was tossed in the top room. That was almost a year ago. You can still see the scorches on the floor. On the rooftop there are bullet holes in a small water tank.
Site of conflict
Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank. On the outskirts is a still productive agricultural and textile zone, with about 170,000 Palestinian residents. Closer to the old city, the tension simmers. Since the second Intifada, when Palestinian and Israel forces clashed daily, friction between religious-motivated settlers and Palestinian residents is never more than one incident away from violence.

(Gates and barbed wire surround the settlement in the city center.)
Here lies Abraham, the patriarch to both Judaism and Islam. Abraham's wife Sarah, his son's Issac and Jacob, and their wives Rebecca and Leah are also entombed in the cave of Patriarchs, which King Herod built a holy fortress on top of.
Then a church was built on it, which was later converted into a mosque, that the Crusaders reconverted into a church, only to have Saladin re-conquer and rebuild a mosque on top of. This land is written all over the Old Testament, and if there's any certainty, both sides will continue to shed blood for it.

(A sign in the old city settlement proclaiming Jewish entitlement to the land they occupy.)
Hebron's modern history is also shaped by violence. In 1929
60 something Jews were murdered in a pogrom incited by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The Jews were evacuated by the British; some were saved by Arab neighbors. An orthodox settler community returned after the six-day war in 1967 and settled into the city center in 1980. They've dug in ever since.
There are five Jewish settlements in Hebron. The teens in the contested house can name them, and also the number of settlers- at least 500 in the old city center and another 7,000 in settlements on hill tops around the city. They are protected by thousands of Israeli soldiers.
The teens also say the name- Baruch Goldstein, a Broolyn-born, extremist who massacred 29 Palestinians gathered for Friday prayers before he was beaten to death in 1994. One of the settlements outside the city supposedly still has a shrine in his honor, although the official shrine was ordered to be bulldozed and the right wing party he was a member of was banned in Israel.
Depends on who you ask
"They really want this house," Bashar said, referring to the settlers next door. "If they take this house, the can take other houses."
The contesting of ownership of Palestinian houses by Jewish settlers is nothing new. Inside Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, one hears stories of settlers contesting the ownership of a Palestinian houses based on records dating from before the six-day war, some even from Ottoman times. Israeli courts side are predisposed to siding with settlers. Israeli Defense forces guard the reoccupation of the houses by settlers.
One of the young residents of the house in Hebron, Saeed said 11 people still live there, including his mother and younger siblings. "We live in a lot of fear," the teenager said, "we can't go and leave the house."

(A settler in the old city.)
Three Europeans in bright blue jackets with red patches passed us in the old Souk. They were civilian observers from Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), founded immediately after the '94 massacre with the mission to report human rights abuses through both the Palestinian and Israeli diplomatic channels.
I asked how the tensions were in Hebron currently. The TIPH volunteers appeared reluctant to be perceived as taking sides, or say anything negative against the settlers.
One woman, an Arabic speaker from Norway said, it is clear the settlers are "trying to expand." She also mentioned how the Israeli courts decide over land ownership disputes is "unclear," especially in the area designated as H2, which the Israelis officially control.
As the sun set, and Sabbath was about to being, we made our way into the old city's settlement. It was like an abandoned movie set. The shuttered shops bore spray painted Stars of David, whether as sign of warning or ownership. Some Jewish settlers in the center of the square met us briefly. We were eager to talk to them. Despite their traditional clothes and beards, some claimed Miami and New York accents. But they rush to a waiting van to before we could ask them much.
The last settler in the square didn't seem to mind us hanging around. "This is the best place in the world, but there are terrorists.

Last night they shot down here with M-16s."
Some would wonder whether he meant the Palestinians or Israeli soldiers. Depends who you ask.
(As Israeli soldier at a guard post inside the old city settlement.)