Published today (updated) 23/06/2011 09:58

Israeli army machinery dismantle a section of Israel’s separation fence in the West Bank village of Bil`in [AFP/Abbas Momani]
BIL’IN, Ramallah (AFP) — Israeli troops on Wednesday began taking down barbed wire around the West Bank village of Bil’in, focus of years of protests against Israel’s controversial separation barrier, an AFP correspondent reported.
Army bulldozers were seen razing a watchtower on a hill overlooking the village but the military declined to comment on the significance of the operation.
On 2010, the country’s defense ministry announced that it would begin altering the course of the barrier around Bil’in in conformity with a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that it significantly impinged on the property rights of Palestinian landowners.
Israel says the wall is designed to prevent attacks but it is widely viewed as a land grab, isolating villagers from fertile farmland, towns from water sources, and communities from relatives, in parts of the West Bank illegally annexed to Israel.
The total separation it ensures between the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Israelis without personal connections in the area, have resulted in the popular term for the network of concrete walls, fence, ditches and watchtowers as the “apartheid wall.”
When the 709-kilometer barrier is complete, 85 percent of it will have been built inside the occupied West Bank, cutting at times as many as 22 kilometers into the occupied land.
“The Israeli army began removing the barbed wire around the village today, four years after the ruling of the Israeli court,” said Rateb Abu Rahmah, one of the organizers of the weekly protests in the village.
“The dismantlement of the wall is the fruit of the struggle by the people of the village,” he added.
The Palestinians’ protests against the barrier in Bil’in have met with a sometimes deadly response from the Israeli security forces.
In January, a woman protester, Jawaher Abu Rahmah, died after inhaling tear gas. Her brother Bassem Abu Rahmah died in April 2009 after being struck on the head by a tear-gas canister.
In a non-binding 2004 judgment, the International Court of Justice called for the dismantling of all parts of the separation barrier built on occupied territory.
After a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories last month, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos described the barrier’s impact on the lives of ordinary Palestinians as “devastating.”
“I witnessed first hand the impact of the barrier on Palestinian communities. I was deeply disturbed by what I saw,” she said.
“I recognize Israel’s concern about security but the impact of the barrier is devastating. It’s clear that civilians are bearing the brunt of the continuing conflict and occupation.”
In a statement sent out Thursday morning, the village’s Popular Committee declared the following day, when dozens are expected to come out for the weekly Friday protest, to be the “last day of the old path of the Barrier on village’s lands, and the beginning of the struggle against the new path.”
The statement said the protesters planned to take down the wall and regain access to their lands on the far side.

June 23, 2011 
































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