Rotating cameras planted on a rooftop terrace “follow our every move”, said Hebron resident Umm Nasser, protesting intensified Israeli surveillance of her occupied West Bank city since the start of the Gaza fighting.

“Psychologically, I’m exhausted,” admitted the 55-year-old Palestinian woman. She lives above the Abu al-Rish checkpoint, the site of frequent violence at the heart of historical Hebron.

It is one of numerous sentry boxes manned by Israeli forces separating Palestinian streets from Jewish settler enclaves in the old town, which hosts a disputed holy site. Known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi mosque and to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs, it is revered by both faiths.

Dozens of heavily armed Israeli soldiers guard the site, assisted by security cameras.

Umm Nasser said that surveillance enhanced by artificial intelligence tools has become “especially difficult during the war” between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

To Umm Nasser, the use of technology is stifling.

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