THE MIDDLE EAST: Israel's security barrier is shearing through people's homes and farms, cutting them off from their livelihoods. Nuala Haughey reports from the West Bank on what the UN sees as a land grab but Israel regards as protection against suicide-bombers
From his house perched on a rocky hill in his West Bank hamlet, Palestinian farmer Hosni Ahmed Hasanodi can survey his greenhouses a short distance below where he cultivates tomatoes, peas and cucumbers.
Not so long ago neighbours in Daba must have envied 59-year-old Hosni his fertile farm, which provided enough income to keep his large extended family in relative comfort. To tend to the crops in his greenhouses, less then a kilometre away, the father of 16 would take his donkey and cart and cut across his terraced fields as the crow flies.
Not any more.
A large mesh security fence erected recently by the Israeli authorities severs Hosni's dwelling from his farm and is now slowly choking off his livelihood. His access to his land has been so curtailed that he is forced to hire workers who live on the other side of the barrier to tend his produce, and his income has plummeted.
Hosni stands by the rear bedroom window of his flat-roofed house and points out his greenhouses among the rows of identical white plastic-roofed buildings in the valley below.
"I hired workers to work and now the worker is the owner without a supervisor," he says. "Now I have to wait for the worker to give me some money. I used to receive every month around 5,000 shekels (€1,000). Now if he gives me 300 shekels (€60) per month, it's good."
The barrier is part of an extensive "security fence" which the Israeli government says is designed to deter Palestinian suicide-bombers by sealing off the West Bank from Israel. About 150km of the barrier has been completed on the north-western edge of the West Bank, and it will eventually stretch to between 600 and 700km.
In some places, as in Daba, the barrier is an electronic fence about 14ft high, while in other areas, including the eastern fringe of the neighbouring city of Qalqiliya, it becomes a 25ft solid concrete wall with watchtowers. A military road patrolled by the Israeli army skirts the barrier and it is reinforced in some areas with trenches and barbed-wire fences.
Controversially, the barrier does not adhere completely to the "green line," the 1949 Arab-Israeli ceasefire line which the international community regards as the frontier between Israel proper and the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank.
Instead, the completed section of the barrier loops into the West Bank to carve off about 3 per cent of its territories. Future sections are planned to dip even deeper into the Palestinian territories to encompass Jewish settlements planted there since the territories were seized by Israel in the 1967 war.
The Israeli human rights group, B'tselem, predicts that if the Israeli government goes ahead with its plan to fence off the entire Jordan valley and Judean desert as well, more than half of the West Bank could end up on the Israeli side. A recent UN report condemned Israel's fence as an act of "creeping annexation".
However, Israel insists that the fence is solely for defence purposes and does not represent any kind of political border.
The Ministry of Defence, which is in charge of constructing the security barrier, points to the efficacy of the fence around Gaza in deterring suicide-bombers. It says that, since the start of the current intifada three years ago, 135 homicide bombers came from Judea and Samaria [the biblical names for the West Bank used by Israel] and conducted 121 terror attacks, resulting in the deaths of 423 people and wounding 2,886 others.
"The conclusion is quite clear. A security fence between Israel and the area of Judea and Samaria will eliminate the occurrence of such horrific terror attacks," the Ministry says.
Daba's residents are among an estimated 13,545 Palestinians in 15 villages who find themselves now living in a "seam area," between the "green line" to the west and outside the walls of the security fence to the east.
B'tselem estimates that when the fence is completed more than 100,000 Palestinian civilians will find themselves living in this "seam area" which the Israeli military in recent weeks reclassified as a "closed zone".
All Palestinians living in the closed zone aged 12 and over must now apply for special green permits to continue living there and in order to move in and out of the area for work or school, or to access services. The zone has 47 gates or passageways which are scheduled to open three times daily. Israeli citizens and Jews have free access to the closed zone without requiring permits.
The UN's Office of the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has predicted that the new permit system will lead to "increased hardship for residents of this closed zone by adding to already complex movement restrictions," by threatening access to land, essential services and work.
Daba's residents can pass through the two gates to villages and towns behind the security fence three times a day; in the morning, around midday and in the evening. However, locals complain that the scheduled opening times for the gates are erratic.
To make matters worse, 13 of Daba's residents have not yet been issued permits by the Civil Administration, the Israeli military authorities. Hosni is among them, so he has become effectively imprisoned in his hamlet.
He stands in his bedroom and shrugs: "What can the prisoner do? Nothing." Even if he had a permit, the circuitous journey that Hosni now has to make to reach his nearby farm is a serious inconvenience.
Another local, Faruk Arar (38), a schools supervisor, was unable to leave the village for work last Thursday as he, too, has not yet been issued with a permit, although his wife has received one.
He turned up at the Ras Atiya gates during the morning opening time on his way to the neighbouring city of Qalqiliya but was not allowed to leave, he says.
"The soldier asked me where is your permit. I told him I did not receive it yet, it's not my problem. He told me to go back several times. Then he told me go or I shoot you. Finally, he told me go, you have a nice day. I told him you have a good hell."
At around midday on Thursday people started gathering on either side of the fence on the western fringe of Daba and queued silently for about 15 minutes waiting for the Ras Atiya gates to be opened by two young Israeli soldiers.
The permit-holders included female teachers who work in Daba, but live outside it. One of the young women displayed her A5-sized laminated paper permit, which described her as a farmer instead of a teacher.
"The programme is not fixed at the gate. They open it any time they want," she said. "We reach the school, and the first class is already finished." Daba's residents are clearly frustrated, and there is talk in the town that a bunch of men might just tear down the Ras Atiya gate some night.
However, they know that such a defiant gesture might only make conditions worse. After a peaceful demonstration last August, the gates were closed for four days, locals say.
As Daba has no medical facilities and locals rely on water trucks for their drinking water, they cannot risk provoking further extended closures.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said efforts were being made to ensure continued access for permit-holders living in the closed zones to their work.
She said the new permits were aimed at ensuring Palestinian suicide-bombers do not exit through these agricultural gates on forged Palestinian identity papers.
"The intention is not to facilitate terrorists and also to minimise damage to Palestinian farmers and workers. Therefore, they have to prove that they live there," she said.
However, Diana Buttu, a legal adviser to the Palestinian leadership, says people living in the closed zone are effectively confined to an open-air prison, their daily routines subject to the whims of local military personnel.