Apartheid Wall
Will Harm One
In Three Palestinians
By Justin Huggler
Independent
12 November 2003
The "separation fence" Israel
is building in the West Bank will have "severe humanitarian consequences"
for almost 700,000 Palestinians, the UN warned yesterday.
More than 274,000
will be stranded outside the wall because Israel refuses to build it
along the internationally recognised Green Line. Thousands will be forced
to apply for Israeli military permits to live in their own homes.
But the consequences
will reach further, the report warns. A further 400,000 Palestinians
will be cut off from their farmland, their jobs, universities and schools.
"This means that approximately 680,000 - 30 per cent of the Palestinian
population in the West Bank - will be directly harmed by the wall,"
the UN said in a report.
The "fence"
- a series of concrete walls, deep trenches and double fences fitted
with electronic sensors - has attracted international condemnation.
Palestinians call it "Israel's Berlin Wall". Even the US,
Israel's main ally, says it is not happy with the route. Israel says
the purpose is to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers and other attackers
crossing into Israel.
Only 11 per cent
of the route approved so far runs along the Green Line, according to
yesterday's UN report. The result is that 210,000 acres, or 14.5 per
cent of the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, will be cut off from
the rest of the West Bank by the wall.
International observers,
including Condoleezza Rice, President George Bush's National Security
Adviser, have said the project looks like an attempt to create a new
de facto border - in other words a land grab of 210,000 acres. The Palestinians
have warned that the wall could be the death of the two-state solution
envisaged by President Bush.
Israel claims the
fence is not intended to be a border and is a temporary measure. But
the UN report says: "The damage caused by the destruction of land
and property for the wall's construction is irreversible". The
report describes how Palestinians will have to pass through checkpoints
in the wall to reach their farmland, offices, schools and hospitals.
In 12 places, enclaves will be surrounded by concrete walls.
The Israeli Cabinet
recently approved a route for the fence which will cut 22km into the
West Bank so that the Jewish settlement of Ariel can be on the "Israeli"
side. The result of detours like this is that 142,000 Jewish settlers
living in the West Bank in contravention of international law, and 274,000
Palestinians will be in the area between the fence and the Green Line.
But while the settlers
will be allowed to cross freely in and out of Israel, the Palestinians
will not. They will be confined to what Israel has decided will be a
"closed zone". The report describes how some 13,545 Palestinians
living in the "closed zone" next to a completed section of
the wall have been told by the Israeli army that they must apply for
permits to go on living in their own homes. The permits are valid for
up to six months.
"These permits
have turned a 'right' of Palestinians to live in their own homes into
a privilege," the report says. Palestinian farmers, businessmen,
doctors, medical staff and aid organisations will have to apply for
permits to enter the "closed zone". The report says Israeli
citizens and non-citizens of Jewish origin are exempt.
"Little consideration
appears to have been given by the Israeli government to the wall's impact
on Palestinian lives," says the report.
"If the military
orders that restrict entry into the closed areas between the Green Line
and the wall are applied to the new parts of the wall, then many thousands
of Palestinians are likely to be forced from their homes and land."