In the streets of Hebron's Old City -- home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs religious site holy to both Jews and Muslims -- most shops are boarded up, their metal shutters firmly closed.
Only a few cater to a rare tourist, peace activist or international aid worker, protected by wire meshing knocked up in some alleys to stop the hard-line settlers who live up the hill from throwing things at passers-by.
"Since 1967, the Israelis have tried to boot Palestinians out of their homes in the Old City and unfortunately they have been successful," says Imad Hamdan, director of the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee. The HRC was set up 11 years ago to restore and renovate houses in Hebron's Old City so that Palestinians would be encouraged to return and safeguard their heritage.
"In the 1950s, there were around 10,000 residents. The numbers started declining from 1967 until 1996 when it fell to 400," says Hamdan, whose association is financed by the European Union, Kuwait, the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia.
Israel captured Hebron, which is the main commercial centre in the southern West Bank, along with the rest of the territory, the Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem, Golan Heights and the Sinai peninsula in the 1967 war.
Physical and verbal abuse meted out by the 500 Jewish settlers who live in a heavily protected Old City enclave, Israeli army checkpoints, traffic bans and business closure notices have all forced Palestinians to flee over the years.
But thanks to the HRC and its incentives programme, nearly 800 apartments have been renovated and 4,000 Hebron Palestinians have returned to the Old City since 1996, says Hamdan.
"We offer free rent, health insurance, monthly food rations. This encourages people to return and demand exceeds supply at the moment," he adds. But many who do return have to contend with daily misery from the Jewish settlers holed up next door.
Thirty-six-year-old Nidal al-Awiwi is one of them. His house abuts the main Jewish pocket in the Old City, a building several storeys high called Avraham Avinu (which means 'Our Father Abraham' in Hebrew) where several families live.
"They're extremists, they hate everyone," he says while visiting his house. He calls one of his sons, Taher, whose head is bandaged. "He was on the roof two days ago and the Jews hit him with stones," says the father.
The Temporary International Presence in Hebron, a civilian observer mission approved by Israel and the Palestinian authorities, has sought to keep the peace since an extremist settler massacred 29 Palestinians at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994 has noted a recent increase in settler violence.
Unarmed, the observers have no right to intervene in the event of confrontation, and have reported 71 cases of violence and harassment from February to end-May this year, compared to 35 during the same period last year.
Last month, Israeli human rights group B'Tselem declared that pro-settler policies have precipitated a "massive exodus of Palestinians" from Hebron's centre, forced businesses to close and turned the area into a "ghost town."