[Facts] Barriers and Blockades

DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)

Israel pulled troops and settlers out of Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, but it still controls its borders, airspace and coastal waters.

As a result of internal and external restrictions on the movement of people and goods, Gazans often describe the area as a prison.

Amnesty International said in its 2006 annual report that "collective punishment" included closures, military checkpoints and curfews that restricted the movement of Palestinians, hindering access to work, education, medical care, family visits and other activities of daily life.

Separation Wall

Israel's West Bank barrier is almost twice as long as Israel's internationally recognized borders. The barrier -- a concrete wall in some places and an electronic fence topped with razor wire in others -- runs deep into occupied land to make some of the 150 major Jewish settlements in the West Bank a part of Israel.

Even the United States has expressed alarm at the appropriation of occupied territory for the construction of Israel's "security barrier" in the West Bank, a territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

The Israeli government says the 670-km-long (400 mile) barrier stops suicide bombers. Palestinians say it encroaches on Israeli-occupied land and will deny them a viable independent state.

In addition to the United States, the European Union, Russia, Canada, Australia and other Western countries have criticized the barrier. The International Red Cross called the barrier a violation of humanitarian law.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague has ruled the barrier illegal. Palestinians have denounced it as a new "Berlin Wall" that imperils peace prospects.

In a 2006 report to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the U.N. expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict John Dugard reaffirmed his earlier charge that the West Bank wall aimed more at seizing land beyond the pre-1967 border, and not just at keeping out suicide bombers as Israel claims.

He said the wall also seemed intended to reduce the number of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.

"It seems that already 15,000 persons have been displaced as a result of the construction of the wall," Dugard said. "This new generation of displaced persons creates a new category of Palestinian refugees."

Checkpoints

An Israeli lobby group said in June 2007 that Israel had built 560 roadblocks in the West Bank. Of these, 467 consist of metal fencing, earth mounds and concrete barricades used to shut roads, the report by Peace Now said.

Another 93 are full military checkpoints staffed by soldiers. Of these, 58 -- or more than 60 percent -- monitor roads that run only inside the West Bank. Officials of the Peace Now group questioned the necessity of the checkpoints that hamper Palestinians' movement on roads that do not lead into Israel.

Israel beefed up checkpoints in the occupied West Bank after a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 and put more restrictions on movement after Hamas took office in March 2006.

Border clampdown

Israel has tightened restrictions on the movement of people and goods through Gaza's main border crossings since Hamas violently took over the territory from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's forces in June 2007.

Gazans often describe the area, home to 1.5 million people, as a prison.

The Rafah crossing is the only point where Palestinians are able to leave the Gaza Strip and travel to the rest of the world, without first entering into Israel. It is also the only exit point for Palestinians needing medical treatment that is not available in the Gaza Strip.

In mid-July 2004, Israel completely closed the Rafah border without warning, citing security concerns and leaving over 3,000 Palestinians stranded on the Egyptian side. The border was reopened nearly three weeks later on August 6.

Israel argues the blockades of Palestinian territories are needed to prevent attacks by militants but Palestinians say the checkpoints are a form of collective punishment intended to drive them out of their homeland.

Illegal Detentions

The Palestinian envoy to the U.N. said in Sept. 2007 that, "Kidnapping of civilians and officials go on unabated and by now there are 11,000 Palestinians in Israeli detention centers, including parliamentarians."

John Dugard, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said in May 2007 that more than 40 people who were arrested in 2006, including more than 30 Hamas members, "still remain in Israeli custody with no prospect of release or being brought to trial".

"Arrests of this kind are clear acts of collective punishment, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, and undermine the peace process," said Dugard, a South African jurist who has served in the independent post since 2001.

In 2003 alone, Amnesty said at least 1,500 Palestinians were taken into administrative detention without charge or trial. Trials in military courts "did not meet international standards. Allegations of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees were widespread and Israeli soldiers used Palestinians as 'human shields' during military operations."