Summary
The strip between the wall and the 1949 Armistice Line — almost 10 percent of the West Bank’s most fertile land — declared a closed military area in October 2003, which Palestinians may enter only by permit while anyone eligible under the Law of Return is exempt (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.56-57).
Details
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If the wall is completed as projected, the zone will enclose some 60,000 Palestinians in forty-two villages and towns (PDF p.56).
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Permit rejections for access to farmland west of the wall rose from almost 40 percent by mid-2005 to more than 80 percent by November 2007 (PDF p.62).
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Two-thirds of rejections are because the applicant cannot prove ownership, or a direct relationship to the landowner, to Israel’s satisfaction (PDF p.62).
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In Makdisi part 4, tens of thousands live in the seam zone and must apply for a “permanent resident permit” to go on living at home; by November 2007 dozens had not received one, granted permits can be cancelled at any time, and a UN-OCHA survey that month showed almost half of seam-zone communities reporting households had left and more than half reporting heads of households had left to find work (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.262).
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Colonel Shaul Arieli of the army reserves states the purpose: to deny residents access to Israel “for demographic reasons”, so that they “will abandon their homes and go to the big cities, at which point it will be possible to expand the borders of the State of Israel without paying the demographic price. It would be voluntary transfer.” (PDF p.262-263)
Related pages
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Separation wall, Mohammad Jalud, Qalqilya