Israel-Palestine: West Bank Village of Walajeh Faces Isolation

The Palestinian village Walajeh, a village in the Bethlehem Governorate located 8.5 kilometres (5.3 miles) to the southwest of Jerusalem, is in danger of being cut off from the rest of the Palestinian lands, leaving 2,000 villagers encircled by Israeli settlements, roads and security barriers.

"Construction has begun on a new section of the West Bank security barrier," says The Jerusalem Post, which continues:

The barrier will make a large dip into the West Bank to keep the settlements, including Har Gilo and the Gush Etzion bloc, on the Israeli side. Within that pocket, an extra loop of barrier is to surround Walajeh on three sides, with a fenced road off limits to Palestinians to Har Gilo closing off the fourth side, according to the Defense Ministry map of the projected route.

Adel Atrash, a village council member said, “We will cling to the village by our teeth. But we don’t know how the next generation will look at things. Maybe they won’t be able to live with all the difficulties and decide to leave.”

Although Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, "In future negotiations [with the Palestinian Authority], the route of the security barrier will not constitute a political factor,” the newspaper's brief summary of the Wall is more imposing:

Today, the barrier, almost two-thirds complete, runs for more than 400 kilometers through the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Once finished, the barrier would put 9.4 percent of the West Bank on the Israeli side, along with 85% of half a million Israeli settlers, according to a UN report.