- November 13, 2009
Children of Shu’fat refugee camp in Jerusalem looking at the Israeli Wall and Pisgat Amir Settlement - PHOTO: Anne Paq
from Badil’s ongoing Nakba Photo Exhibition BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights - www.badil.org
CLICK on picture to ENLARGE
Israel’s wall carves through the occupied West Bank encircling villages and dividing and isolating its communities. The wall itself is a massive 700km network of 8m high concrete blocks and observation towers, and 100m wide barriers composed of barbed wire, military patrol roads, ditches, surveillance cameras and electrified fencing. Together with the settlements, by-pass roads and checkpoints that make up the Israeli closure regime, almost half of the occupied West Bank is made inaccessible to Palestinians. This de facto allows for the confiscation of these areas and the potential displacement of thousands of Palestinians families caged within reservations. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared that Israel was legally obliged to “dismantle” the structure and that members of the international community have an “obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction.” Despite the ICJ ruling, Israel persists in continuing with construction, and the international community has not taken any effective steps to make it comply.
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