New study of effects of the Israeli Land-Grab, Apartheid Wall on Palestinians 

Thursday September 13, 2007 16:21 by Mayssa Abu GhazalahI - MEMC News ghassanb at imemc dot org

The Civil Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Palestinians in Jerusalem published a report on Thursday documenting the effects of the illegal Israeli Land-Grab, Apartheid Wall on the lives of Palestinians in and around the city.

When complete the Wall surrounding Jerusalem will be 181 km long and 27 Palestinian communities will be directly affected. Up to 15,000 Palestinians with Jerusalem ID living outside the Wall will be denied access to the city, preventing them from working there. In addition 1,835 families have been forced to move home.

Land confiscation:

19.2% of land owned by Palestinians in Jerusalem and 5.3% of Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank has been confiscated to make way for the Wall.

A total of 11,100 dunums were requisitioned for construction purposes and 40,985 will be disconnected from their owners (one dunum is 1,000 square meters).

Social life:

21.4% of Palestinian families have been separated from relatives (15.5% inside the Wall and 32.6% outside)

18% of families now live apart from their fathers and 27% from their mothers.

72.1% of families have at least one member who cannot now reach their university or college in the West Bank and 69% have lost access to schools.

The proportion of families reporting that they would not want a family member to marry someone with West Bank ID has risen from 31.6% to 69.4%.

Movement:

94.7% of families report that the time taken to get through checkpoints has severely affected their ability to move around the city.

25% of Palestinian-owned shops have closed down because of restrictions on movement and high taxes on Palestinians living in the city.

34.5% of families suffer from lack of health care as they no longer have access to hospitals in the West Bank.

84.6% of families say their ability to visit relatives in the West Bank has been badly affected.

Translated By: Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News Room.

 

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Note to Readers:

The Israeli settlements as well as the Land-Grab, Apartheid Wall in the Palestinian occupied territories have been built illegally on confiscated Palestinian lands. These represent a major violation of international law, Geneva Conventions, and they obstruct reaching a peaceful resolution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Israeli occupation forces abduct and kidnap Palestinians from their homes and at checkpoints, on daily basis. Most media refer to these abductions and kidnappings as arrests, which is inaccurate and not true as the Israeli occupation government has no jurisdiction over Palestinian citizens inside their own territories.

Further, when Israeli occupation forces kill Palestinian civilians, particularly when the victims are women and children, this should be referred to as an act of terrorism, and perpetrators should be described as terrorists.

Since the end of the second intifadha in 2005, not a single Israeli civilian was killed by Palestinian resistance organizations. However, Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces, almost on daily basis.

Note to Journalists:

Any journalist who does not describe this as terrorism is biased, unfair, not objective, and a participant in terrorizing the Palestinian people, so the Israeli occupation of Palestine can continue endlessly.

Note to Translators:

The Arabic definite article, Al (or its variant, El) should be written with a hyphen separating it from the noun it is associated with, for example Al-Aqsa. If a hyphen is not used, as in Al Aqsa, it confuses non-Arabic readers. They may think that it is an abbreviation of the name Albert, as many Americans do.

The Arabic definite article Al (or El) should be written as such, whether it is Shamsiyah or Qamariyah in pronunciation, simply because we are dealing with the written form of the language, not the spoken one. Using the Shamsiyah so many forms in writing is inaccurate and confusing to non-Arabic readers, to say the least.

Only standard (fasih) pronunciation of Arabic names should be used. Non-standard ('ammi)  should be avoided avoided. Example: Names like Abu Sunainah, Abu Rudainah, and Abu Shebak are written by some translators in the non-standard forms of Abu Snainah, Abu Rdainah, and Abu Shbak.

The standard pronunciation of the vowel at the end of names is (a), not (e), particularly if it is followed by (h), like in the cases of Haniyah and Rudainah, not Haniyeh and Rudaineh.

The standard pronunciation of vowels in the following names is (ai), not (ei) as written by  some translators: Hussain, not Hussein and Hassanain, not Hassanein. This is the same long vowel pronounced in the English words "rain" and "brain."

 

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