Jordan Valley open only to non-resident Palestinians on foot

[bemildred]

The Israel Defense Forces is only partially implementing the directive
of Defense Minister Amir Peretz to end the ban on Palestinians' entering the Jordan Valley.

The IDF last week began allowing Palestinians who do not live in the Valley to pass through the checkpoints but only on foot. However, sources in the northern Jordan Valley told Haaretz that in the last few days soldiers at the Tayseer checkpoint did not permit pedestrians to pass through, contrary to instructions.

A tour last week by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem found that the soldiers at the Ujja checkpoint, north of Jericho, were entirely unaware of the directive and the change to permit pedestrian traffic.

Since the beginning of 2005, the IDF has banned Palestinians from entering the Jordan Valley, except those registered as living there (some 27,000 people).

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/868494.html

[Tom Joad]

1. Palestinians denied access to vast area of their own homeland. Apartheid

what else is there to call it? Certainly nothing less extreme than that.

[bemildred]

2. I was mostly interested in the way it demostrates that the government

is not obeyed by the IDF in the OPT. The IDF does what it likes, and Peretz or Olmert are ignored with impunity.