Thursday, November 06, 2003

Newsday.com - Palestinians Forced to Apply for Permits

Newsday.com - Palestinians Forced to Apply for Permits: "The new order, issued Oct. 2, turned the areas between the barrier and Israel into closed zones. No Palestinian can enter or leave without a special pass and no one can live there without a residence permit. Israelis are exempted from the regulations.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat called the new orders 'a depopulation program.'

Others also were worried about farmers cut off from their fields and workers cut off from their jobs who might be forced to move away to support their families.

'It's a direct expulsion and an indirect expulsion,' said Jamal Juma, who is coordinating a campaign against the barrier for Pengon, a private Palestinian organization. 'This will destroy their lives, destroy their culture, destroy everything, destroy their future.'

The problems created by the barrier were visible throughout Jubara, near the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem.

Trash was piling up because garbage trucks were unable to enter.

Farmers were forced to hire people on the other side of the fence to pick their olives, sometimes paying them with half the harvest.

Children trying to get to school hoped soldiers would be there to open the fence.

On a recent day, dozens of children ages 6 to 15 waited after school in the hot midday sun behind the mustard yellow gate, some for more than an hour, until soldiers standing nearby let them cross back into the village. "

And that's why Iraq doesn't want to be 'occupied'.

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