Israel speeds up West Bank fence

By PHIL REEVES

JERUSALEM - Israel's Ministry of Defence is speeding up moves to create a fence, with trenches and earthworks, to keep Palestinians from the West Bank out of Israel amid a renewed wave of suicide bombings.

Plans to build the 80.5km first stage of the fence are being pushed by the Defence Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, as Israelis mourn a grandmother and a toddler blown up by a teenage Palestinian near Tel Aviv on Tuesday and three high school students shot yesterday.

Yarden Vatikai, a Defence Ministry spokesman, said work on the barrier would begin in the "next weeks or so". It will include a fence, which is expected to have an electro-sensitive warning system, along the northwestern edge of the West Bank and north of Jerusalem.

Yesterday, Israeli police flooded west Jerusalem and threw up road blocks after reports that two suicide bombers were heading for the city from the West Bank.

The resumption of suicidal attacks only a month after the end of Israel's major military offensive in West Bank towns - in which several hundred Palestinians died and thousands were detained - has added to evidence that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's attempts to crush the infrastructure of violent Palestinian nationalist groups has not worked.

Twenty-two Israelis have been killed inside Israel by suicide bombings in the past month.

Tuesday's attack, in an icecream parlour, was condemned by the Palestinian Authority. But there was strong support in Nablus' Balata refugee camp, home of the 18-year-old bomber, Jibril Titi.

Titi's cousin, an al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade leader, was one of three militants assassinated in a cemetery by Israeli armed forces last week. Reports said one of Titi's brothers was paralysed by shrapnel from an Israeli tank shell when Israeli forces raided the refugee camp.

The fence - or "obstacle", as Israeli officials refer to it - has prompted concern that it could become a "de facto" border.

Israeli right-wingers, including settlers, consider the West Bank part of Israel. But Israeli Government officials maintain the "obstacle" is purely for security.

"There are no political considerations," Vatikai said yesterday. "This is just to protect Israelis from a mass terror campaign."

Israel is resorting to tightening its lock-down of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories, conducting daily raids into Palestinian-administered parts of the West Bank, and the occasional assassination.

It still blames Yasser Arafat for not stopping attacks - although there is little evidence he has the power to do so - and to demand reform of the Palestinian Authority as a condition for negotiations.

Palestinians say Israel's approach has fuelled violent elements, citing the surge in attacks. In the absence of fresh ideas on peace, Israelis are exploring a total re-occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

One commentator wrote in Israel's biggest daily, Yedioth Ahronoth: "Re-occupation of the territories is a matter of time and a sufficiently high number of casualties will spur the Government to action."

- INDEPENDENT

Feature: Middle East

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