WEST BANK: Israeli barrier surrounds Palestinian home causing many problems for its residents

Record ID: 561527

  • Title: WEST BANK: Israeli barrier surrounds Palestinian home causing many problems for its residents
  • Date: 25th May 2007
  • Summary: MEMBER OF 'STOP THE WALL' ASSOCIATION, NAZIH SHALABI TALKING TO HIS FRIEND WITH CONSTRUCTIONS OF BARRIER IN THE BACKGROUND AGRICULTURE BARRIER GATE, OPENED TWICE A DAY DURING HARVEST SEASON
  • Embargoed: 9th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA3BEEXRBQ529B3MU8XITGCCBZB
  • Story Text: The 600-km (370-mile) barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank is having a markedly negative impact on the lives of Palestinians whose doorsteps it is being built on. One Palestinian family living in the Palestinian village of Mesha, has found itself living in a home completely hemmed in by the barrier.
    Hani Amer, father of six, is a farmer from the village of Masha whose home is now separated from his land, which he uses for agricultural purposes, by electric fences and a military road. The concrete barrier separates his home from the rest of Masha village.
    "The gates surrounding my home, are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, I have seven gates surrounding my house," says Amer.
    "All these gates are closed and only opened by the army but I enter through that small gate there, they gave me a key for it," he adds.
    The fences, the wall and the closed gates around his home -- all part of Israel's security barrier -- are causing Amer to refer to his home as a "prison".
    Amer and his family live in one of the few Palestinian homes left in the area where the Israeli concrete wall is being built on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank. Nearly all other Palestinian buildings in the wall's path have been demolished.
    The section of the separation barrier running through Masha Village was complete in 2003 and a consequence of its presence has been the separation of many villagers from their fields as well the total loss of some, if not all of their land to the military road being built next to the barrier.
    "(Our land) is located behind Azon Atmeh, near the green line. It contains a water well and all this land has been confiscated because of the wall. The second point is that Masha has two water wells, a well inside the village and a well in the western agricultural land. The well that is on the western agricultural land has been confiscated due to the wall," said Nazih Shalabi, a member of the "Stop the Wall" association, a grassroots Palestinian anti-apartheid wall campaign.
    A concrete wall, a fence and barbed wire separate the Amer house from what is left of their village to the east and the Israeli settlement of Elkana to the west. A second fence restricts their movement south and north. Amer's home is surrounded by an eight-metre high wall or a fence topped with barbed wire. The family's only access to the outside world is through a single yellow iron gate next to the concrete wall.
    Such restrictions have consequences, non of which are positive.
    "The wall is catastrophe, a problem. The wall has caused me economic problems, psychological problems for my children, social problems- interacting with people is difficult... and on top of all of this, all these problems are easier to deal with than dealing with the problems that the settlers cause me," says Amer.
    Palestinians call the barrier -- whose course encompasses Israeli settlements inside the West Bank -- a disguised move to annex or fragment territory Palestinians seek for a viable state.
    The World Court declared the barrier illegal but Israel has ignored its non-binding ruling, and says the barrier is a necessary measure to prevent suicide bombers from entering Israel.
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