[News] Israel’s Apartheid Wall Stands 15 Years After UN Deemed it Illegal

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Israel-Apartheid-Wall-Stands-15-yrs-UN-Deemed-it-Illegal-20190709-0032.html 



  Israel’s Apartheid Wall Stands 15 Years After UN Deemed it Illegal

July 9, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Israel’s construction of its 760 km-long separation wall in the occupied 
Palestinian West Bank advances as Tuesday marks the 15th anniversary 
since the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion 
<https://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/131/131-20040709-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf> 
that deemed it illegal.

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While the decision is non-binding, the United Nations judiciary body 
ruled in 2004 that the wall violates international law and declared 
construction must stop immediately and Israel should make reparations 
for any damage caused.

By a majority of 14 to 1, the judges found that the barrier "would be 
tantamount to de facto annexation" of Palestinian territory. The U.N. 
General Assembly later voted overwhelmingly to demand Israel to comply 
with this ruling but was ignored.

The international organization called its member states to "not 
recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the 
wall in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in and around East 
Jerusalem" and "not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the 
situation created by such construction".

"The issue is not with the ICJ ruling or international law or General 
Assembly resolutions, but with the continuing culture of impunity that 
exempts Israel, an occupying power, from punishment," Isam Abdeen, an 
advocacy lawyer for Palestinian rights group Al Haq told Al Jazeera.

Despite it all, 15 years later construction continues, and as the ICJ 
warned, illegal annexation of Palestinian territory increase, violating 
the 1967 Green Line.

 From 2006 until Dec. 31, 2018, Israel demolished at least 1,401 
Palestinian residential units in the West Bank, excluding East 
Jerusalem. This has left more than 6,200 people without their homes, 
including at least 3,134 minors.

Just in 2018, there was an increase 
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/UN-Israeli-Demolition-of-Palestinian-Structures-in-West-Bank-Up-10-in-2018-20190119-0007.html> 
of 10 percent compared to the prior year according to the U.N. Office 
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied 
Palestinian territory. Some 500,000 Israelis live in the occupied West 
Bank and East Jerusalem, areas that are home to more than 2.6 million 
Palestinians.

When completed, the Wall will have annexed about 46 percent of the West 
Bank, isolating communities into ghettos and "military zones", encircled 
on only 12 percent of mandated Palestine.


      Israel’s Apartheid Wall

The occupation scheme dates back to November 2000 when Israeli Prime 
Minister Ehud Barak approved the first project to build a "barrier." Yet 
the construction officially began in 2002, at the height of the second 
intifada, west of the city of Jenin.

Since then, approximately 85 percent of the wall's planned 760km-long 
route has been built within Palestinian territory. The concrete 
structure is present in Bethlehem, parts of Ramallah, Qalqilya, parts of 
Tulkarm and throughout East Jerusalem.

It stands eight meters high, twice the height of the Berlin Wall, with 
watchtowers and a "buffer zone" of 30 to 100 meters wide for electric 
fences, trenches, cameras, sensors, and military patrols, according to 
the NGO Stop the Wall 
<https://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/Wall-fc-En.pdf>.

On average, according to the Israeli Defense Ministry, over 60,000 
people per day entered Israel for work, medical treatment, humanitarian 
assistance or commerce in 2017. Those people living in the cities and 
villages that have already been affected by the wall have to endure 
constant repression in a prison-like environment.

The crossings often times are overwhelmed by people, the fastest routes 
are reserved to illegal Israeli settlers and discrimination and violence 
is a daily occurrence for Palestinians in their own land. All and all in 
a similar manner that Palestinians in Gaza have been facing since 1994.

"The wall itself is part of the matrix of control and rights abuses that 
are part of the daily Palestinian experience," Omar Shakir, the Human 
Rights Watch director for Israel and Palestine, told Al Jazeera.

-- 
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