International monitors decided today to pull out of the West Bank city of Hebron temporarily after Palestinians attacked their headquarters in protest at European cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
Arnstein Overkil, the Norwegian head of the TIPH observer team (left) with staff outside the TIPH headquarters in Hebron today. Reuters/Damir Sagolj
"We are leaving Hebron temporarily because of the damage to the four buildings but we will return," said Arnstein Overkil, the Norwegian head of the TIPH observer team in the city, where 500 Jewish settlers and 130,000 Palestinians live.
Hundreds of Palestinians threw stones at the headquarters of TIPH, or Temporary International Presence in Hebron, smashing windows in protest at the newspaper cartoons deemed blasphemous by Muslims.
TIPH, staffed by about 160 personnel from Denmark, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey, was established following the killing of 29 Palestinian worshippers in Hebron by a Jewish settler in 1994.
"I feel safe in Hebron and I feel that we have to be in Hebron but I feel that we have to leave it because of the situation right now," Overkil said. "We don't know when we are coming back."
Palestinian police fired in the air to try to disperse the protesters. Some TIPH personnel took to the roof of their headquarters and waved the mission's flag.
TIPH's mandate is to monitor and report "efforts to maintain normal life" in the city.
A wave of anger has swept the Muslim world over the publication of the cartoons, one of which shows the Prophet Mohammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb. Muslims have denounced the caricatures as an insult to Islam.