Palestinians say they cannot afford the high application costs for the permits or wade through the long bureaucratic nightmare the process involves, especially when the answer is often negative, which it usually is in areas of the West Bank where Israel wants Palestinian communities to move out.

Villagers of Baqaa are receiving support, however, from activists of an international peace organization, the Christian Peacemakers Team. Its members have been visiting Baqaa villagers everyday in a bid to prevent Israeli bulldozers from leveling their homes and clinic.

"We are prepared to physically stand in between the bulldozers and the clinic and houses to try and prevent their destruction," 77-year-old New Yorker, Merino sister and peace activist Jean Fallon said.

Fallon, who spent 15 years working for Catholic Justice and Peace in Japan, felt a calling to come to the Palestinian territories with CPT to help bring attention to the inequities and hardships faced by Palestinians under Israeli occupation, after she first visited the area in 1995.

"That was a good time to be here, because there was optimism and hope after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1994. But since then the despair and lack of hope, as peace seems even further away, has made daily life for Palestinians here in Hebron and elsewhere wretched," Fallon said.

The CPT team is based in the Old City of Hebron, where unemployment is alarmingly high and many Palestinian businesses have been forced to close to keep shoppers away to protect the security of settlers.

Hebron is home to some 700 of the most militant and hardcore Jewish settlers who live cheek and jowl among a Palestinian population of more than 167,000 who are largely supportive of the militant Islamist organization Hamas.

This volatile mixture has ensured regular outbreaks of violence and bloodshed. The more infamous incidents were the massacre of 67 Jews by Arab rioters in a dispute over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 1929.

And in 1994 an American doctor, Baruch Goldstein, and settler from the Kiryat Arba settlement just outside the city, opened fire and killed 29 Muslim worshipers as they prayed inside the Ibrahimi mosque.

Goldstein was beaten to death by survivors. The settlers of Kiryat Arba subsequently built a shrine to Goldstein, which is also visited by settlers elsewhere in the West Bank who come to pay homage.

Following the mosque massacre, Palestinian residents were confined to their homes for many days even as food, water and other essentials ran alarmingly low, while armed settlers roamed the streets freely, shooting at Palestinians and vandalizing their property.

It was against this background that CPT established itself in Hebron in 1995. Since then, not only has the organization won the respect of the local Palestinians for their commitment to protecting and helping them, but also the grudging admiration of the Israeli military in the area.

"It has been a humbling experience," said Fallon, when questioned about how a small team of committed Christians had managed to win the admiration of both communities.

This respect has been partly earned by placing themselves in regular physical danger, protecting Palestinians against attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers in which some members were physically injured.

Fallon recalls an incident several weeks ago. "A group of Palestinian women and children were attacked by a group of about 30 Israeli teenage settler girls as the Palestinians were walking home.

"We immediately formed a human chain and blocked the Israeli settler girls from trying to punch the Palestinian women and children. They spat at us and kicked us, but were eventually pulled off by Israeli soldiers who this time chose to intervene, even when they normally just stand by," Fallon told the Middle East Times.

Groups of settler girls have also been responsible for attacking nearby Palestinian homes. "The Palestinians live in fear of them and there is nothing they can do, because they are protected by the Israeli military," Fallon explained.

Although none of the activists were seriously harmed in this particular incident, several have been hospitalized with serious injuries in previous settler attacks when accompanying children to school.

In addition to the physical protection they afford Palestinians, the organization's work also consists of documenting and human rights reporting, training members in non-violence, and making regular visits to families threatened by home demolitions and land confiscations.

The group also works with Palestinian and Israeli peace groups to develop action campaigns to expose this face of the occupation.

As this reporter left Baqaa with the CPT team, the biting cold and driving rain and hail appeared to have given the medical clinic and homes a few days stay of execution from the pending demolition. Yet, Jean calmly stated, the team would be back at daybreak the next day, and the day after if necessary.

"We don't expect to stop the demolition," Fallon said. "But at least we are taking action by showing solidarity with the villagers and registering our strong disapproval of the Israeli authorities."