People in one village are cut off from schools and hospitals, reports Nuala Haughey in Jerusalem
Residents of Abu Dis village on the outskirts of Jerusalem have known for months now that Israel planned to sever their district from adjacent Arab neighbourhoods of the city, which they have been seamlessly attached to for generations.
In the past week these plans began to materialise in the shape of a towering 25ft high wall of smooth grey concrete slabs, which will eventually separate the 11,000 Palestinian residents of this West Bank village from schools, hospitals, shops and relatives in Jerusalem.
The structure is part of Israel's controversial "security obstacle," a 480 mile (720km) network of fences, ditches, patrol roads, guard towers and short concrete segments, which is being built around Jerusalem and inside the West Bank. Israel says it is a necessary bulwark against Palestinian suicide bombers.
However, the controversial route of the barrier - it puts about 15 per cent of the West Bank onto the Israeli side - has attracted intense international criticism and will be the subject of a hearing at the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
A despondent Hassan Ekermawi sat outside his Alhilal grocery store, dwarfed by the looming bulk of the wall a few feet away. He is on the East Jerusalem side, while many of his customers live on the Abu Dis side.
"We see it in the TV, in the papers, it's like a movie. But now we see it in front of us and we are miserable and very deeply sad," said the suited and bespectacled 47-year-old, the anger in his voice tempered by a mixture of despair and resignation.
"Everybody who lives in Jerusalem pays taxes for this wall. This is the way to transfer Palestinians outside of Jerusalem. They don't want them. They want the country for the Jewish only." Ekermawi says the wall will kill his business.
"If it stays a situation like this, of course I will close. But what can I do after that? I am 30 years here. After that, I am 47. It's difficult to have to go to work for somebody." A faded yellow and white Walls ice cream awning hangs above Ekermawi's shop, and above that again on the roof of the single story pale stone building is a makeshift lookout post where three armed Israeli border policemen are perched, overlooking the newly constructed portion of the wall. They joke with locals beneath, asking another shopkeeper for a light for their cigarettes.
The erection of the security barrier in this village which lies in the shadow of Jerusalem's Mount of Olives strikes deep emotional chords for locals. Abu Dis is a natural hinterland of Jerusalem and some villagers even have Israeli residence documents. They go to Jerusalem rather than West Bank cities for work and school, to shop and visit family, to collect marriage licenses and death certificates.
During previous peace efforts, negotiators had proposed Abu Dis as the centre of a compromise Palestinian capital that would have incorporated parts of East Jerusalem, the part of the city that Israel annexed in 1967. Israel, however, claims the city as the eternal, united, and undivided capital of the Jewish state.
The new structure in Abu Dis follows the route of an existing barrier of 7ft high concrete bollards topped with barbed wire in place for several months which locals treated as a mere hurdle, easily slipping through gaps. These blocks, which are currently being replaced, are daubed with graffiti in English reading: Stop the injustice; Make peace; Remove the wall and Welcome to Abu Dis ghetto.
Adal Mohsen crossed over the remaining portion of the old barrier on foot from the Jerusalem side to his home some 200 metres on the Abu Dis side, scrambling through mud and rubble aided by his teenage daughter, Maysa.
Mohsen's left leg is twisted, and he walks with a limp. A staff nurse in the emergency room of the St John Ophthalmic Hospital in Jerusalem, the West Banker whose father and grandfather came from Jerusalem has a permit to work in Israel.
"They put us in a prison. How is the life when anybody puts you in a prison?" he replied, when asked his opinion of the wall.
Mohsen is concerned that when completed, the barrier will make it difficult for Maysa to get to her school near Jerusalem's Old City, a mere 5 km to the west.
The Israeli Ministry of Defence says there will be a passage in the wall somewhere at Abu Dis, but West Bank Palestinians fear such a gate would be seldom open and they would not get the necessary permits to pass.
If forced to take a new circuitous route to school, heading east and looping round to the large Jewish West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumin, Maysa would encounter Israeli checkpoints and long delays. By taxi, and without stopping at checkpoints, this journey takes about half an hour and costs about 70 shekels (€14). Without the wall, a taxi ride to the city takes less than 10 minutes and costs 25 shekels (€5).
"She might have to change school but it's her tenth year studying in Jerusalem. How she can to change school and her friends?" said Mohsen, as he made his way home near the large stone building that was scheduled to become the Palestinian parliament after a final-status agreement.
Israel says the barrier is not a permanent political border, but a reversible security measure which has already saved Israeli lives. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Silvan Shalom, yesterday defended the structure and said his government was "doing everything that we can to ease the life of the Palestinians living near the fence". "We built the fence because we were forced to do it," he added. "During 2001 and 2002 we suffered sometimes from three or four suicide bombings per day."
However, the security argument makes little sense for shopkeeper Ekermawi as he faces the destruction of the business his father established in 1962.
"They say that this is for security? If there is no peace there is no security. The peace brings the security, not the security brings the peace."