- JENIN, West Bank (AFP) -
The Israeli army said Tuesday it tore down 28 small businesses in a West
Bank village, amid protests by Palestinians and foreign rights activists,
although the mayor of Nazlat Isa put the number at 62.
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- An army spokeswoman told AFP the buildings near the northern
town of Tulkarem were razed because their owners had no building permits,
but mayor Ziad Salem said it was linked to the construction of Israel's
security fence three kilometers (1.5 miles) away.
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- The spokeswoman said more owners had also been notified
of the impending demolition of their businesses, although she declined
to give a number.
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- Salem told AFP that 62 stores had been razed to the ground
by seven army bulldozers as a crowd of 500 Palestinians and foreign rights
activists protested the demolition.
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- "This will kill the village's economy," he
said, adding that troops tear gas and sound bombs at the demonstrators.
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- "The army wants to clear the area around the fence,"
Salem said, referring to an army checkpoint already erected in the village.
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- A spokesman for the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity
Movement told AFP the "market place on which a good chunk of the destroyed
stores stood has become unrecognizable," although he could not say
exactly how many stores had been destroyed.
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- US citizen Jonathan Elsberg said he had been hit in the
leg by a tear gas canister and temporarily detained by the army.
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- He confirmed that some 500 people including a dozen foreigners
and Israeli rights activists protested the demolitions.
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- Israel started building the 350-kilometre (220-mile)
hi-tech security fence between its territory and the West Bank in June
2002, following months of suicide bombings launched from the West Bank.
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- The fence, which can reach up to 30 meters (100 feet)
in width, requires uprooting thousands of trees and its route dips beyond
the Green Line in several areas.
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- The government has argued that the route was designed
to bring some isolated Jewish settlements back on to the Israeli side of
the fence for security reasons.
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- The first chunk of the fence, covering approximately
120 kilometers, should be completed in June 2003.
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- Mustafa Barghuti, head of the main federation of Palestinian
non-governmental organisations, said last week the fence is also taking
away the most fertile land in the West Bank.
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