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Wall Will Isolate Thousands of Palestinians
From Their Land

Palestine Media Center
7 May, 2003

According to a recent report by international donors, the unilateral separation wall being built by Israel east of the green line borders with the West Bank could cut off 12,000 Palestinians from their land, work and essential social services.

The report was researched and written by a team of experts under the direction of the Local Aid Coordination Committee’s (LACC) Humanitarian and Emergency Policy Group, which includes the European Union, Norway, the United States, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, and the World Bank.

International donors to the Palestinians, including the US, commissioned the report because of concern that the wall could “harm Palestinian livelihoods and the viability of local economies, and might negatively affect the delivery of humanitarian aid and damage assistance projects.”

However, the donors did not call for tough actions towards the construction of the wall despite hinting that Israel might be trying to change the current status quo in the West Bank.

The report only recommends that donors should closely monitor the construction of the barrier, its impact and its implications for the Palestinian population, and that donors should provide assistance to affected communities and households.

The wall is located as much as six kilometers inside the West Bank, with plans underway to thrust the wall as much as 20 km deeper into West Bank territory.

When completed, as many as 12,000 Palestinians could be left on the western, Israel-facing side of the wall, cut-off from their land, workplaces and essential social services, the report revealed.

Palestinians see the wall as a strategic threat and accuse the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of building it along the length of the West Bank so that it entirely encircles any futuristic Palestinian state.

The first 80-mile stretch of the segregation wall, running north from near the city of Qalqiliya, is nearly complete and expected to be turned over to the control of the Israeli occupation army in July.

By the end of the year, a second section enclosing the entire northern border of the West Bank should be finished and work will then concentrate on the southern part of the Palestinian territory around occupied east Jerusalem and Hebron.

To obtain land on which the wall is being constructed in the West Bank, Israel is annexing private Palestinian property pursuant to military orders.

Every Palestinian landowner’s appeal to any Israeli body ranging from Israeli military committees to the Israeli High Court has been rejected.

The report also further hinted that Israel is violating the agreements signed with the Palestine National Authority (PNA).

The 1995 Interim Agreement between the Israel and the PNA states that neither party “will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations” and that “the integrity and status” of the West Bank and Gaza Strip “will be preserved during the interim period,” the report emphasized.