Al Walaja in the West Bank turned into an enclave despite residents’
protests

Sixty-three-year-old Ahmed Bargouth sits in the shade of a walnut
tree and contemplates the view before him.

Across the valley is
Jerusalem’s zoo, which his grandchildren have never been able to visit,
although they have watched animals through binoculars.

Below is
the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv railway, also never travelled by the Bargouth
family. Its route here marks the Green line, drawn after Israeli and
Arab armies agreed an armistice in 1949, when Bargouth was aged two,
which placed most of the original village of Al Walaja out of the reach
of its Palestinian owners. A cluster of Israeli houses stand on land
owned, inhabited and farmed by the Bargouth family and other villagers.

Behind
Bargouth is the Jewish settlement of Har Gilo, built – illegally under
international law – on occupied Palestinian territory and fast
encroaching on what remains of the diminished village.

And in
front of Bargouth’s garden, planted with figs, plums, grapes and
pomegranates, is an ugly scar of raw flattened earth where Israel is erecting a section of its
separation barrier that will encircle the village and cut off farmers
from fields, students from places of learning and patients from
hospitals.

The original route of the barrier – which Israel says
is necessary for security reasons – would have cut Al Walaja in two. The
community launched a legal petition to keep the village intact, which
was granted – with the catch that the revised route, announced in April
2006, would completely encage the village. Al Walaja would become a tiny
Palestinian enclave connected to the nearest West Bank town by one road
or tunnel controlled by a checkpoint.

. . .