Israel’s top court has blocked the controversial planned extension of Israel’s separation wall through the historic Cremisan valley – home to two Salesian monasteries and a convent school – ending a high-profile nine-year campaign.
Palestinians appealed to two popes to intervene to save the valley, in an issue that became a source of friction between Israel and the Vatican. The mayor of Bethlehem, Vera Baboun, most recently appealed directly to Pope Francis at a meeting with him in February.
A delegation of 16 bishops also visited Cremisan earlier this year. Representing the episcopal conferences of Europe and North America, they reiterated their commitment to oppose the construction of the barrier. A delegation of representatives of EU member states also visited the site to protest against the planned construction.
The campaign against the route of the barrier at Cremisan was taken up by William Hague when he was UK foreign secretary, and the archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols.
The Israeli court also rejected an alternative proposal from Israel’s defence ministry that would have allowed for a door in the wall connecting the two sites, instructing the army to come up with an alternative proposal.
Israel says that the wall is necessary for security, but local residents have long charged thatits real purpose was to allow the connection of the illegal West Bank settlement of Har Gilo to the Jerusalem settlement of Gilo.
The planned route would in effect have cut off a large amount of privately owned Palestinian land from about 50 mainly Christian families and Vatican land owned by the two Salesian monasteries.
Also under threat had been the continued viability of the Salesian Sisters’ convent school, which educates several hundred children from the surrounding villages.
Under Israel’s original plan, the school would have been on the Israeli side of the barrier while almost all of the pupils would have been on the Palestinian side, meaning they would have to cross an Israeli military checkpoint to get to class.
In making its ruling, the court ordered the military to find a route less harmful to Palestinians living in the Cremisan valley.
Welcoming the decision at a press conference at the Salesian convent on Thursday, attended by families whose land had been under threat, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, told the Guardian: “You can see the happiness of everyone who is here. It has been the result of a campaign not only by local people but by Vatican officials, the foreign consuls who came here and all those who raised the issue internationally. Coming before Easter, this is a joyous resurrection for us.”
Lawyers involved in the campaign warned that the military could theoretically introduce a new order to reroute the wall, but they believed that the court’s ruling – in particular the parts relating to the impact on local people – made that unlikely.
Also at the convent on Thursday was Samia Khanaliyah, an architect for the Palestinian town of Beit Jala, whose families have already lost land to the wall and were threatened with losing more.
“The land is important to people. Not just for those who make a living farming their trees, but because with so few parks it is an important open space.
“It has not been easy for us to fight this. We need to get permission to go to court in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv to hear a case in a language that is not our own. Over the years some people lost hope, but we never did.”
The court’s ruling is the second victory for Palestinians over the routing of the wall through the area in recent months.
In another recent court case judges froze the planned construction of the wall near the village of Battir a few miles from Cremisan – through a Unesco world heritage site.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/israels-top-court-blocks-extension-of-separation-wall-through-cremisan-valley
