Barrier to cut off 55,000 Jerusalem Palestinians

JERUSALEM - Some 55,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem will be separated from work, schools and hospitals in the holy city by September 1 when Israel's barrier is completed, according to an Israeli cabinet decision on Sunday.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called for workers to speed up building the barrier, which Israel says stops suicide bombers and Palestinians call a grab for West Bank land even as the Jewish state quits settlements in the occupied Gaza Strip.

The cabinet on Sunday set September 1 as completion date for the barrier around Jerusalem, which will separate more than one-fifth of the Palestinian residents of the city they want as the capital of a future state.

"Only a small part of the population of the eastern part of the city, 55,000 residents, will be on the other side of the fence, but with comfortable arrangements for crossing it," Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters.

Officially, there are about 240,000 Palestinian residents of Arab East Jerusalem.

Israeli ministers agreed on the need for arrangements to let residents cross the barrier at 12 points as well as expanding services such as schools and medical centres beyond the obstacle at the Shuafat refugee camp and village of Aqab.

Israel will only "close" the barrier after it judges the basic needs of residents have been met, a cabinet statement said.

The Palestinian Authority called on Israel to put an immediate stop to construction and said no measures could compensate for cutting off residents from the city, which is holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews.

"I don't think that with such measures Israel serves peace nor does it serve its security," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters. "What Israel is doing is in fact putting obstacles on the path of peace."

The barrier will make it harder for Palestinians to reach East Jerusalem, which they seek as the capital of an eventual independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Along with the other occupied territories, Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. It then annexed it as part of its own "indivisible capital" in a move not recognised internationally.

The World Court ruled a year ago the barrier of concrete walls and razor wire-tipped fences was illegal because it was built on occupied land.

For long stretches it follows roughly the pre-1967 boundary line, but elsewhere it will loop deep into the West Bank to take in Jewish settlements. More than a third of the planned 600 km barrier has been completed.

Violence in a Palestinian uprising has subsided since Sharon and Abbas agreed a ceasefire in February.

But the barrier has remained a major source of tension between Israel and the Palestinians as Sharon prepares to implement his plan to evacuate settlements in Gaza and a corner of the West Bank starting in mid-August.

- REUTERS