Fence over troubled quarters angers Palestinians

By JUSTIN HUGGLER

BAQA AL-SHARQIYA - You can see the fence that caused controversy at President George W. Bush's meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday, just a few minutes' drive outside Baqa al-Sharqiya.

It is a great rent through the rolling foothills of the West Bank made up of two fences, the first, made of tough metal is less than a metre in front of a taller fence, equipped with electronic sensors.

Along its length, Israeli Army jeeps patrol, stopping any Palestinian who tries to cross where the road to Baqa al-Sharqiya passes through an opening.

The problem with the fence is that it is on the wrong side of Baqa al-Sharqiya. It is not on the internationally recognised Green Line that separates Israel from the occupied West Bank. That is on the other side of the villages - and there is another barrier there.

Baqa al-Sharqiya is in the West Bank, but it has been fenced off from the rest of it. The new fence is around 2.5km inside the Green Line here, and slices off a swathe of land.

This means Baqa al-Sharqiya is stuck in a no man's land, fenced off on both sides.

"It's like living inside a zoo," says Zahran abd al-Khalim, a carpenter who lives and works in Baqa al-Sharqiya.

Sharon, who said after his meeting with Bush in Washington that Israel would continue to build the fence, insisted the fence was purely for security, to stop would-be suicide bombers crossing into Israel.

But if that is the case, the village of Baqa al-Sharqiya begs a question. Why is the fence on the wrong side of the village, when Israel already has checkpoints and barriers separating the village from Israel?

According to abd al-Khalim, the answer is obvious. "Because they want to take more of our land".

The fence near Baqa al-Sharqiya is finished, but eventually it is to link with a chain of fences and walls that will cut off swathes of land from the Palestinians to keep a couple of Jewish settlements on the Israeli side.

Even here, where it is only 2.5km inside the West Bank, it has caused hardship to Palestinians.

It cut Suleiman abd al-Muti, who lives on the West Bank side, off from almost all of his farmland which is next to Baqa al-Sharqiya. Now he has to sneak through to his land when the patrols are not looking.

"They say this fence is for security," he said. "But the fence kills people. It has killed me."

Abd al-Muti will not starve - he owns other property, but other farmers are not so lucky.

Inside Baqa al-Sharqiya, men were hanging despondently around the bus station. They had come looking for work but found none.

Traditionally, the unskilled labourers from here crossed the Green Line into Israel to work in Baqa al-Sharqiya, or East Baqa's sister village: Baqa al-Gharbiya, or West Baqa, which has an Arab population but is inside Israel.

Now the Palestinians are not allowed to cross the Green Line, but they still try to get across. Awwad Qassem was caught four times. Three times, he was beaten. On the fourth occasion he was held in jail for 22 days.

Now the labourers have to cross not one but two barriers to get work - and they have to get through one even to work legally in Baqa al-Sharqiya.

They are allowed to cross the fence through the one checkpoint that Israel has been insisting it will allow the Palestinians to cross the new fence for work.

But, Qassem said there was a catch. It took two hours of queuing to get through the checkpoint, by which time all the work for the day was taken.

- INDEPENDENT