Top British official to visit separation wall on West Bank visit

Published today (updated) 18/08/2009 12:29 British official Lewis will tour the separation wall which
encircles Qalqiliya [MaanImages] Bethlehem – Ma’an –

British Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East Ivan Lewis began a four-day visit to Palestine and Israel on Monday, which will include a tour of the illegal Israeli Land-Grab, Apartheid Wall in the West Bank city of Qalqiliya.

According to an official UK statement, Lewis will also visit areas of occupied East Jerusalem where Israel has recently demolished houses and evicted Palestinians from their homes.

“I am very much looking forward to my first visit to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in my new role. We really are at a critical juncture, and I believe that it is imperative to come out and see the situation on the ground first-hand,” Lewis said at the start of his visit.

“We face some immense challenges in our efforts to secure a just and lasting peace for the Middle East, but Britain, as a firm friend to both Israel and the Palestinians, continues to do all it can to help realize the goal of a two-state solution,” he added in a statement.

In Israel, Lewis will meet with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and center-right opposition leader Tzipi Livni.

The minister will also visit the southern Israeli town of Sderot to see the effect of projectiles formerly fired from Gaza. There, he will meet Mayor David Buskila and visit a new park funded by Jewish National Fund’s UK branch.

On 21 July Lewis told members of the British Parliament that the UK’s policy is a demand for a total freeze on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“The UK has long made our opposition to settlements clear,” he said, “and we press the Israel government at the highest level continually on the importance of fulfilling its roadmap commitments: Israel should freeze all settlement activity, including the natural growth of existing settlements, and dismantle all outposts erected since March 2001.”

Israel has rejected such calls for a settlement freeze.