Security wall to cut deep into West Bank

JERUSALEM - For the first time, Israel published a detailed map Friday of its planned security wall, which would encircle tens of thousands of Palestinians, cutting them off from the rest of the West Bank, while keeping about 80 percent of Jewish settlers on the Israeli side of the wall.

The wall's snaking path, sloping from flat land up into mountains, cuts deep into the West Bank and will likely inflame already fierce international opposition.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the military also was planning a final section of the wall in the eastern area of the West Bank and would soon present it to the Cabinet. That section, which would cut Palestinians off from the Jordan Valley, would likely pass a few miles from the Jordan River, he said in a TV interview.

Palestinians are strongly opposed to the wall, saying Israel is using it to create a de facto border that infringes on West Bank land they claim for a future state. Israel says the barrier is intended to keep Palestinian terrorists from entering the country to carry out attacks.

Early Friday, two Islamic terrorists cut through a fence around the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip and broke into the barracks of soldiers guarding the area. They went from room to room shooting sleeping soldiers, killing three and wounding two, according to the army and media reports.

Troops shot and killed one Palestinian, who was armed with an assault rifle, but failed to find the second attacker, the army said.

Gaza is surrounded by a security fence of its own, and none of the more than 100 suicide bombers who have attacked Israelis over the past three years made it past the fence. Israel says it is seeking to replicate that success with the West Bank wall and has already built 90 miles of it around the northern part of that territory.

But where that section hugs fairly close to the border before the 1967 Middle East war - dipping slightly into the West Bank to include Jewish settlements - the new section would extend deep into the West Bank.

The map of the new section outlined a series of double fences in some areas to protect Israel's international airport from rocket attacks and a planned ringed road around Jerusalem.

Those walls will surround several West Bank towns, including Qibya, Beit Sira and Bir Nabala, isolating an estimated 70,000 Palestinians, according to some Israeli officials.

Opponents of the wall accuse Sharon of using it to grab West Bank land and isolate the Palestinians.

It would take two more years to complete the fence, and cost another $230-million, said Amos Yaron, director general of the Defense Ministry.

The government had earlier released details on wall, but Friday was the first time it published a map showing the route of the proposed sections.

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