RAMALLAH, 17 June — Israel yesterday began constructing a “security fence” along the border with the West Bank as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ruled out the declaration or establishment of a Palestinian state in the near future.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer officially kicked off work on the controversial security fence flying in the face of opposition from Jewish settlers, the hard right, Israel’s Arab citizens and the Palestinians of the occupied territories. As Ben Eliezer inspected the initial worksite near the northern Israeli town of Kfar Salem, right-wingers in Sharon’s government were clamoring to have the project shut down.
Work on the fence, which will initially measure at least 110 km, began in the afternoon at the Salem checkpoint. The fence is planned to stretch from the Salem checkpoint south to Kfar Kassem, northeast of Tel Aviv. Another stretch of fence is also planned for the Jerusalem area. An Israeli official was quoted as saying the fence would be a “technological fence”, with special instruments, including cameras and sensors.
The fence is aimed at cutting off the northern West Bank towns of Jenin, Tulkarm and Qalqilya. Work on the barrier between Kfar Salem and Kfar Kassem, which lies about 20 km east of Tel Aviv, is expected to take six months and cost about 400 million shekels ($80 million).
The full structure, comprising fencing, trenches and walls with electronic surveillance equipment, is to eventually stretch 350 km along the “green line” between Israel and the West Bank and wind around Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority criticized the new fence, saying some of it will be built on Palestinian-controlled areas, and it will restrict even further Palestinian’s freedom of movement. The official Palestinian media center said the fence meant Israel was “implementing its racist apartheid system in the occupied Palestinian territory”, and would effectively isolate Palestinian cities from one another.
Israel’s National Religious Party, on the influential right-wing of Sharon’s government, demanded the work be halted during a stormy Cabinet meeting yesterday. Discussion was put off until a session of the “mini-Cabinet” Wednesday.
In another development, the new Palestinian security chief warned he would not tolerate armed militias in the Palestinian areas and slammed bomb attacks. “We should end all forms of militias, and for good,” he said in interviews with the media yesterday. “All the forces and factions should turn to political work within the framework of the Palestinian Authority (PA), whether they support it or not,” he said.
In the Jordan Valley, meanwhile, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian by the Hamra roadblock. He was killed as he and two companions tried to skirt the checkpoint and failed to heed soldiers’ warnings to halt.
Meanwhile, about 500 Palestinians were stuck yesterday at the Egyptian sector of the Rafah border crossing into the Gaza Strip because of tight controls imposed by the Israeli Army, an AFP correspondent reported.
In Washington, US Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, said yesterday that he supported an end to President Arafat’s tenure, but said for now, the United States must “work with what we have.”
“I do think it is important for us to be pushing for a regime change ... in the Palestinian movement,” Daschle told Fox news.
In a late night development, at least five Israeli tanks rolled into the West Bank town of Jenin, Palestinian witnesses said.
They said the tanks fired their machine guns at unknown targets. (The Independent)