Wall must move

last updated 8 January 2015

Jerusalem

Israel’s high court this week ordered the military to move a 1-mile section of the security wall that cuts through the West Bank village of Bilin. “We were not convinced that it is necessary for security-military reasons to retain the current route that passes on Bilin’s lands,” Chief Justice Dorit Beinish wrote for the unanimous court. The military says the security wall, which Israel began to erect in 2002, is responsible for a sharp drop in suicide bombings. But many Palestinians say it is intended as a “land grab,” as it puts 10 percent of the West Bank—including much of Bilin—on the Israeli side of the barrier. Bilin residents and Israeli human-rights activists had been holding weekly protests at the barrier for more than a year.