Hebron, is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank. It is the largest city in the West Bank, home to over 200,000 Palestinians and between 500 and 850 Jewish settlers based in and around the old quarter of the city.

In 1997 the Hebron Protocol split the city into two sections; H1, which is controlled by the Palestinian Authority and H2, which is roughly 20% of the city is administered by Israel.
The city is important for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike for its link to Abraham. It contains the burial site for the biblical matriarchs and patriarchs.Hebron is the second holiest city, after Jerusalem, for Jews and it is one of the four holy cities of Islam.

In this series of photos I have included transcripts from conversations I had whilst visiting the city, they are anonymous and voice what these particular people from various backgrounds and political agendas were saying at these moments. This is a tiny glimpse into an incredibly complex city.

“….and the same thing on the other side, beliefs are a beliefs. If we really, as I believe, if we really respect each others beliefs we get into a level of hope of peace, we might completely agree to disagree, but the most important thing it has to be respectful. He called me a liar, because I am a liar according to his point of view, but he didn't call me a son of a bitch. So for me, according to the examples of the soldiers I met, he’s one of the friendlier ones.

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Only reaction you get, he closed the window, no reaction, honestly, no answering, no questions anymore. I wanted to go into a conversation with him, but you know, he closed the door.”

“I didn't know I was jewish until I was about 15, my mother passed away when I was 10 and she was Jewish. My dad was an army boy, a British army boy, and at 15 we started looking into our roots, we met our grandparents for the first time and found out that our family had pretty much been wiped out from the holocaust. My mothers family. So we went on a root chase, me and my big brother. We found out that my mother, when she was 18 came to Israel and spent two years in the army as a social worker, so we kind of felt that we had to do our bit and honour our mum. My brother was in the elite paratroopers for a couple of years and then he went out and went back to England. I started out in the elite ranger unit and went on from there, I found a love for Israel. I found a girlfriend, it just felt right to be here.

As for my opinions, well my opinions are not really something that I would give out freely, especially when I'm in uniform, at the end of the day I represent the army, so my opinion is that I don't have an opinion, I do what I'm told, the orders come from above and I just carry them out. What I will tell you is that the situation isn't black and white at all, its a very grey situation, its not an ideal way to live, not for Jews and not for Palestinians here. The city is 97.5 Palestinian and 2.5 Jewish. We have 3 jewish villages here, ones up there and two are down there, in those areas, which are very very very small areas, you can go see it if you want, we don't allow entrance to Palestinians, just because of history, too much violence. Obviously around the areas we have checkpoints like these, just to make sure that people coming in and out are relevant to this area. Coming to visit family coming to visit friends, or basically who live here. We don’t let people who are strangers or have no reason to be here in, also because of historical facts and historical problems, which is obviously not an ideal way to live for anyone. But the problem is that we’re not gonna kick out the jews who are here, there’s to much history with this city, with Hebron. There’s places in Israel where they are taking Jews from homes and are giving up their homes for Palestinians, which is in some cases good some cases bad, but this city particularly has a connection to the Jewish people and the only way that people can live here without terror everyday is by the security we provide and the security we provide is also to the Palestinians. Since I've been here, for the past four months, we've had seven fires. in buildings around here and we’re the first people to get there and put the fires out. Its important for us at the end of the day that people live here as peacefully and as quietly as you can in this area.

“Theres an Israeli police force and a Palestinian police force, we work with both. We work with them everyday almost, they try to calm down citizens in things like riots and such, we try to let them do their work before we even do ours.”