OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 25 October 2003 — Israel published a detailed map yesterday of its planned security barrier, which would encircle 70,000 of Palestinians, cutting them off from the West Bank, and would keep about 80 percent of Jewish settlers on the Israeli side of the fence.
The snaking path of the fence, which slopes from flat land up into mountains, cuts deep into the West Bank and will likely enflame already fierce international opposition.
Palestinians are strongly opposed to the barrier, saying Israel is using it to create a de facto border that cuts deep into West Bank land they claim for a future state. Israel says the barrier is intended to keep Palestinian militants from entering the country to carry out attacks.
Also yesterday, two militants cut through a fence around the isolated Jewish settlement of Netzarim in Gaza under early morning fog and broke into the barracks of the soldiers guarding the area. They went from room to room shooting sleeping soldiers, killing three and wounding two others, according to the army and media reports.
Troops shot and killed one of the Palestinians, who was armed with an assault rifle, but failed to find the second attacker in the fog, the army said.
A settlement security guard, Eliyahu Zan, said that a call came over his walkie-talkie warning that an attacker was in the settlement and residents turned off house lights and prepared weapons.
“We heard the sound of the shooting very loudly. It pounded in our ears,” he told Israel Radio.
The Israeli military published a map of the new section for the first time yesterday, outlining a series of double fences in some areas to protect Israel’s international airport from rocket attacks and a planned ringed road around Jerusalem.
Those barriers will completely surround several West Bank towns, including Qibya, Beit Sira and Bir Nabala, isolating an estimated 70,000 Palestinians, according to some Israeli officials.
Defense Ministry spokeswoman, Rachel Niedek-Ashkenazi, said defense officials had not yet finished their estimates on the number of Palestinians that would be cut off, but said 70,000 was much higher than their current assessments.
US officials have not yet approved that section of the fence and are studying whether it is necessary to protect planes taking off and landing at the airport, the security sources said.
Also yesterday, Palestinian doctors said an 11-year-old Palestinian died after he was injured by Israeli gunshots near the boy’s Gaza home. Elsewhere in Gaza, a 10-year-old boy was shot in the stomach and was taken to a hospital in critical condition. The army said it did not know of shootings in either area.
Also, in northern Gaza, soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian who approached the fence of another settlement, the military said.
Meanwhile, two Palestinian men died of wounds from an Israeli helicopter missile strike Monday in a Gaza refugee camp, bringing the death toll in that airstrike to 10. Also, a 15-year-old Palestinian died of wounds from a battle last week between Israeli troops and gunmen in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
