Skip to content or view screen version

Israel bisects West Bank into 8 huge detention camps

IRNA | 21.05.2002 22:07

Seeking to suffocate the Palestinian people into unconditional capitulation, Israel has bisected the
West Bank into eight huge detention centers cut off from each other and virtually isolated from the rest of the outside world.

The eight segregated areas are the al-Khalil region, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jericho, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm and Qalqilya.

According to the new draconian measures, Palestinians, including pedestrians, travelling outside their immediate towns and places of residence will have to obtain a special freedom-of- movement permit from the Israeli domestic intelligence, the Shin Beth.

The immediate purpose of the extremely harsh measure is to suffocate the Palestinian population by forcing them into a situation of collective claustrophobia.

However, the ultimate goal of dividing the West Bank into 8 isolated bantustans seems to effect and expedite what one Israeli official recently termed "a quiet transfer," e.g. induced mass deportation of Palestinians from their ancestral homeland by making normal life unbearable.

The measure is expected to further cripple Palestinian economic life and paralyze all aspects of life in the West Bank, particularly the educational system as students and teachers are barred from reaching their schools and colleges outside their places of residence.

Palestinian officials castigated "these apartheid arrangements," calling on the international community to exert pressure on the Zionist regime to respect the humanity of the Palestinian people.

"This must be the penultimate step before the appearance of real Nazi-like concentration camps. The question is should the world wait until this happens," asked Ya'acoub Shahin, a PA spokesman in Bethlehem.

"Their goal is simply to make life unbearable for the average Palestinian citizen so much so that he will be forced to contemplate immigrating from his homeland," said Shahin.

But he added that "I assure you that this won't happen, because this is our motherland."

Protesting the cantonization of the West Bank, the PA has asked the European Union to pressurize Israel to reconsider the grave
measures.
EU representatives in the West Bank have reportedly briefed their respective governments about the new situation and are awaiting a diplomatic response.

Israel's unabated efforts to reduce Palestinian population centers to virtual concentration camps (minus gas chambers) are coupled with continuing haphazard murder of Palestinians civilians, often shot and killed while venturing to return to their homes from their jobs or vice versa.

This week, the Israeli army murdered at least eight innocent Palestinians including a seven-year-old child, two young boys, a housewife, and a medical doctor.

IRNA

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

Reap what you sow

21.05.2002 23:11

Did the Palestinians really believe Israel would buckle under constant terror attacks. One of the most tragic mistakes in modern history was made when Arafat rejected the path of peace at Camp David, and decided instead to lead his people to catastrophe. The Palestinians have had their Intifada, and unfortunately the coming months are going to be 'payback' time.

Chris


Sick fucker!

21.05.2002 23:32

Your hate-filled philosophy is a fairytale Chris.

Camp David


The Sham of the Peace Process

22.05.2002 13:33

NEVER FORGET THAT MORE THAN FIVE TIMES AS MANY PALESTINIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED IN THIS CONFLICT THAN ISRAELI'S (AND THE MAJORITY OF THESE DEAD ARE CIVILIANS, AND A SUBSTANTIAL PROPORTION OF THESE CIVILIANS ARE UNARMED CHILDREN).
THE ISRAELI DEFENCE FORCES HAVE BEEN GUILTY ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY - IN DEIR YASSIN (IN 1948, ) IN SHATILLA AND SABRA (1982), IN JENIN (IN 2002), TO NAME SOME OF THE WORSE MASSACRES.
Once again, this "Peace" Process is brought up.
Time and time again I talk to Zionists, and they say, "Israel offered to withdraw from the occupied territories, but the Palestinians turned it down".
In fact, what the Palestinians rejected was an offer that fell short of the minimum deal, which is implementation of the UN resolutions calling for a complete and total end to the ILEGAL Israeli occupation, and the right of return to Israel for Palestinian refugees who were driven from their homes in 1948 and 1967.
The Palestinians are quite right to reject any deal which fulls short of implementing the basic UN resolutions.
We should also note, that the offers that Israel made are quite typical of Colonial powers, in all the anti-colonial national liberation struggles of the past, the ruling power would always offer some kind of limited political autonomy, while wanting to cling onto economic and political control (think of the british in India, French in Algeria etc.,)
The so called "generous" offer of Barak was an attempt to weaken Palestinian resistance to occupation under the cloak of giving limited autonomy.
The kind of autonomy that was offered was compared to Bantustans in South Africa.
The occupied territories were to be divided into three separate areas, completely inaccessible to each other.
During the peace process life actually got WORSE for the Palestinians.
Economically, living standards plummeted as Israel cynically strangled her economy. The level of repression and human rights abuses against Palestinians actually went up.
One of the best articles I have read exposing the sham of Barak's "generous" offer is on the Wensite of GUSH SHALOM, (THE ISRAELI PEACE BLOC) which has an article called "12 Myths of Barak's generous offer")

Antonius Cliffus Jnr.