Update: Impact of the Wall on Refugees

The revised route for the separation Wall, approved by the Israeli cabinet on 20 February 2005, will continue to generate new displacement in the occupied West Bank. As of February 2005 approximately 209 km of the Wall had been completed. Once completed the Wall will be 670 km in length, more than twice the length of the 'Green Line'.

According to the PLO Negotiations' Affairs Department, the Wall and planned colony expansion will enable Israeli control of 46 percent of the occupied West Bank. The new Wall route de facto annexes 9.5 percent of the West Bank.(¹) This figure includes the Latrun Valley and eastern Jerusalem, Israeli-occupied Palestinian lands that together constitute 2 percent of the West Bank. It also includes the Ariel bloc which constitutes 2.1 percent of the West Bank.

Colony blocs east of the Wall de facto annex an additional 8 percent of the West Bank. Israel's de facto annexation of the Jordan Valley accounts for an additional 28.5 percent of the West Bank. Eastern Jerusalem accounts for 1.3 percent of the West Bank but represents the economic, cultural and religious hub of the Palestinian economy. The Ariel Finger which stretches 22 km into the northern West Bank accounts for 2.1 percent of the West Bank but sits atop some of the most valuable water resources in the region.

The land between the Wall and the Green Line is some of the most fertile in the West Bank. There are currently 49,400 Palestinians living in 38 villages and towns, says OCHA(²), excluding communities in eastern Jerusalem. The previous route had 93,200 Palestinians living in this area. The reduction is due to easing of closures in Qalqilya although the city remains surrounded by the Wall. More than 500,000 Palestinians live within a 1 km strip east of the Wall, including eastern Jerusalem.

The new route effectively incorporates 355,783 settlers or 86.6 percent of the Israeli colony population. Days after announcing the new route Israeli plans were revealed that detailed construction of more than new units in West Bank colonies. About half of the units are slated for the Jerusalem area.

The Wall, according to Israel, is a security measure. As such it requires immediate attention since the present focus of attention, according to the Sharm ash-Sheikh agreement, is security. There is a distinction between legitimate security measures and illegitimate security measures. The construction of the Wall, within Palestinian territory (as opposed to along the Green Line or within Israel) is an illegitimate security measure and should be discontinued immediately and not relegated to the realm of “permanent status talks”. Failure to do so will provide further evidence of Israel's intention to annex Palestinian territory and jeopardize a fragile truce.

If the ceasefire is to hold it is essential that the Palestinian Authority exercise control over militant groups responsible for violence against IDF and settlers within Palestine and for suicide bombings within Israel. It is equally important for Israel to keep its side of the bargain. However, it is not sufficient for Israel to only cease its military activity against Palestinians. It must address, with great expedition, the causes of Palestinian militancy, the issues that have given rise to terrorism against the Disraeli people. People must address the release of prisoners, the abandonment of checkpoints, the dismantling of the Wall and the evacuation of all settlements in Palestinian territory. If it fails to do so, it will forfeit an opportunity for peace that may not again arise.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2005/29/Add.1, 3 March 2005.

In the affected Palestinian villages located west of the approved route of the Wall in the southern West Bank, most have substantial refugee populations. This includes Battir, Wadi Fukin, Husan and Nahalin. Only the latter two do not have a majority refugee population according to the 1997 population survey conducted by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). Battir, Wadi Fukin and Husan also lost nearly 8,000 dunums combined in 1948-49 in addition to ongoing expropriation to Israeli colonies since 1967.(³)

Palestinian villages east of the Wall that may be affected also include substantial refugee populations. Five villages have a majority refugee population.(⁴) Other villages, like Beit 'Awwa, Surif, and al-'Azariya have refugee populations of more than 2,000 persons. In 1948-49 Beit 'Awwa, Idhna, al-Jab'a and Surif lost a combined total of more than 7,000 dunums of land.(⁵) These villages have suffered ongoing loss of land due to Israeli colonization since 1967.

In mid-March 2005 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan confirmed that the UN is establishing a register of property damage caused by the Wall, more than half a year since the General Assembly Resolution ES-10/15, 2 August 2004 first called for the establishment of such a register. However, there is little evidence that substantial work has been done to set up the restitution body. There are also questions as to why some UN institutions continue to use the term 'barrier' to describe the Wall, when the ICJ was clear in its advisory opinion about usage of the term 'Wall'.

Notes:

(1) PLO Negotiations Affairs Department, Barrier to Peace: Assessment of Israel's 'New' Wall Route, March 2005.
(2) OCHA, Preliminary Analysis of the Humanitarian Implications of February 2005 Barrier Projections. Update 3, February 2005.
(3) “Palestine Arab Towns and Village Lands outside the Territory Occupied by Israel under the General Armistice Agreements of 1949,” Appendix V, in Sami Hadawi, Palestinian Rights and Losses in 1948. London: Saqi Books, 1988, pp. 224-228.
(4) This includes 'Arab al-Fureijatt, ar-Ramadin, Deir al-'Asal al-Tahta, Tawas, and Doha.
(5) Hadawi, note 3 above.