A British government-funded report says the route of Israel's separation
barrier is trapping 250,000 Palestinians in enclaves designed to protect
Jewish settlers in the occupied territory.
It says that creation of the enclaves cutting Palestinian communities off
from the rest of the West Bank "almost totally ignores the daily needs
of the Palestinian population" and is "focused almost exclusively
on the desire to maintain the fabric of life of Israeli settlers".
The critical report which says the existence of some Palestinian
communities is threatened by the barrier was produced by the Israeli
planning and rights organisation Bimkom. The research was jointly funded by
the New Israel Fund and the British Embassy in Tel Aviv.
It says the barrier is cutting employment for Palestinians and isolating
farmers from markets, causing "particularly serious damage" to
residents' health-care needs and undermining social and family life.
The report focuses on two categories of cut-off communities in the West
Bank. The first are "seam enclaves" between the barrier, broadly
to the east, and the 1967 Green Line, to the west. It comprises around 8,000
residents whose movements into the rest of the West Bank, where 2.5 million
Palestinians live, are heavily restricted by checkpoints. Pointing out that
residents in such enclaves require a military permit, the report says "
Palestinians whose families have lived there for centuries must now acquire
permits, without which their mere presence in their villages constitutes an
offence."
The second and larger category are "internal enclaves"
which are bound in, sometimes virtually encircled, by the barrier and roads
forbidden to Palestinians to protect "fingers" of occupied
territory inhabited by Jewish settlers and to ensure the settlers' access to
Israel proper.
The report cites the example of the Bir Nabala enclave in which residents of
five villages traditionally linked to Jerusalemwill have only two ways out,
through tunnels, to Ramallah or the area of the West Bank village of Biddu.
The report also says, despite a series of Supreme Court decisions in favour
of rerouting the barrier, "there has been no meaningful change in the
system of considerations guiding the planners".
Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign ministry spokesman said the barrier had had
a major effect in reducing suicide bombings and added: "For
Palestinians there is an issue of quality of life; but for Israelis it is
one of life or death."
Israel's Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, has spelled out a three-stage Middle
East peace initiative tied to a timetable, saying that "a new plan"
was needed to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's unilateral proposals
scuppered by the Lebanon war. He envisaged the process leading to 18 months
of "final status" talks on a permanent settlement.
* A blast damaged the offices of the satellite channel Al-Arabiya in Gaza
City last night. Nobody was hurt.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
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