Israel razes security wall at Jerusalem neighborhood

Israel on Sunday began dismantling a concrete security barrier in a southern Jerusalem neighborhood facing Palestinian National Authority areas.

The move came after the army concluded that the near decade- long threat of sniper and mortar fire at Israeli residents in the hilltop neighborhood of Gilo had ended.

Soldiers and workers, using cranes and flatbed trucks, began removing 800 concrete segments covering almost 600 meters along a tree-lined ridge in Gilo facing Beit Jalla, which is adjacent to Bethlehem and under PNA control. The project will take about two weeks to complete.

Israel erected the barrier in 2002 after a string of near-daily sniping and mortar attacks into the 30,000-resident Israeli neighborhood.

Palestinian snipers and mortar crews would commandeer shooting positions - sometimes against the residents' will - in homes and churches in the largely Christian-Arab village, and fire across the steep ravine at pedestrians, schools and homes in the Israeli area.

The Jerusalem Municipality, in an effort to protect residents, installed hundreds of armored windows in dozens of apartments and homes facing the snipers, in addition to setting the concrete barriers.

The attacks on Gilo caused several casualties and damage on both sides. Israeli homeowners and pedestrians in Gilo would huddle out of the line-of-fire as bullets whizzed across streets and through living room windows, and mortars exploded on rooftops. Palestinians in Beit Jalla endured the Israeli military's punishing response.

The Israeli army erected a tank position facing Beit Jalla and helicopters hovered over the vicinity to fire combined tank shells and machine gun fire back at the gunmen. Dramatic exchanges were common, and echoes of the explosions and shooting could be heard around the clock across both Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

On quieter days, school and youth groups on the Israeli side painted supergraphics, trees and nature views on the barren gray concrete, reflecting the pastoral reality on the other side of the divider, which cut off the view of the ravine.

Later agreements between the two sides on the political, municipal, military and tactical level served to lower tensions, leading to today's activity, which some analysts also view as an Israeli goodwill gesture towards the PNA.

The Gilo barrier is not a part of the official "Security Barrier," which lies nearby and is higher and electronically monitored.

The main security barrier is intended to stop attacks and unchecked entry into Jerusalem from Palestinian areas around Beit Jalla and Bethlehem. Numerous suicide bombings rocked Jerusalem over the last decade and killed and wounded hundreds.

Gilo was established after the 1967 War, and lies over the cease-fire lines. Israel holds that the neighborhood is an integral part of Jerusalem, which it considers its capital, and is on land purchased from the Arabs decades earlier. Palestinians and much of the international community, however, consider it to be occupied territory.

Source: Xinhua