Israel is weighing a plan to bar Palestinians from the main roads in the West Bank to protect Israeli motorists from roadside shootings, Israeli officials said on Wednesday.
Palestinians denounced the proposal as segregation in the West Bank, the territory the Palestinians are seeking as part of a future state. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said it would be "the official introduction of an apartheid system."
A senior Israeli official, who asked not to be named because a number of options are still under consideration, said:
"We think it is necessary to separate traffic on the roads, not all the roads, but the main roads, where Israelis are most vulnerable. It doesn't call for complete separation everywhere, and we see this as sort of a stopgap measure."
The developments came as the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, prepared to meet President George W. Bush in Washington yesterday. Abbas is pushing for a resumption of full-scale peace negotiations, while Israel is demanding that Abbas first crack down on armed Palestinian groups.
The Bush administration says Israel has a right to defend its citizens, but is also urging Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government to ease the restrictions placed on Palestinians.
In response to a Palestinian shooting on Sunday that killed three young Israelis, the Israeli military currently bars private Palestinian vehicles from traveling on two large stretches of Route 60, the main north-south road in the West Bank. The road links the largest Palestinian cities and is also heavily used by Jewish settlers.
Throughout the past five years of fighting, Israel's security forces have set up scores of checkpoints and roadblocks that have limited or prohibited Palestinian movement on the West Bank road network.
In many places, the military has placed concrete blocks, built earthen mounds and dug trenches to prevent Palestinian village roads from connecting to the main roads.
"Most of the traffic is already separated," said Dror Etkes, an official with Peace Now, an Israeli group that monitors settlements. "There aren't a lot of places left where Israelis and Palestinians are driving on the same roads."
Israel eased some travel restrictions after a February truce that has reduced but not halted the violence.
The Israeli plan now under consideration was first reported on Wednesday in the Israeli newspaper Maariv, which described it as a more formal -- and perhaps permanent -- separation of Israeli and Palestinian traffic in the West Bank.
The newspaper said it could involve building new roads that would be used only by one side or the other, and was part of a larger proposal to completely separate the two sides.
In recent years, Israel has built numerous bypass roads specifically designed to connect large West Bank settlements to Israel.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS