Less than a month on the job, and Defense Minister Naftali Bennett is not wasting a minute of his time. On Dec. 1, he instructed the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories to inform Palestinian municipal authorities in Hebron that planning had begun for construction of a new Jewish neighborhood in the compound of the town’s wholesale market, earning accolades from his target audience, the settlers. In doing so, Bennett is seeking to create territorial contiguity from the Tomb of the Patriarchs to the Jewish neighborhood of Avraham Avinu (Our Father Abraham) and to double Hebron’s Jewish population.

According to data compiled by the human rights organization B’Tselem, some 700 Jews currently reside in the area of Hebron designated as H2, which includes the Old City, as well as 250 students in the Shavei Hevron yeshiva. About 34,000 Palestinians also live in H2 and another 166,000 in other parts of the town, designated H1.

H1 and H2 were so designated by the 1997 Hebron Protocol, signed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-head of the Palestinian Authority, PLO leader Yasser Arafat, in order to divide security control of the volatile and tense city, especially in the wake of the 1994 massacre of Muslim worshippers by a Jewish settler. The division was intended to prevent the tensions between the Jews and Palestinians from spilling over into other parts of the West Bank and undermining the Oslo peace accords. The idea was also to create a buffer between Palestinians and Jews, who regard habitation in the city, including the takeover of homes in the heart of the crowded Palestinian town, as a pioneering, national religious mission.

Under the agreement, 80% of the town’s area (H1) was handed over to Palestinian control. The rest (H2), where 34,000 Palestinians live along with the Jewish settlers, and which includes the Old City and the Tomb of the Patriarchs sacred to both Muslims and Jews, is under Israeli military control.