The Israeli government announced that they were going to close down the West Bank region of Israel starting at midnight yesterday, March 28, until Tuesday, April 6 for the Passover holiday The only people allowed to cross the temporary block will be civil workers and journalists with the proper paperwork and people in need of medical care. Just an FYI the West Bank area is an area that was originally given to the Palestinian state in Israel but when fighting broke out the Israeli forces took it over and began building a barrier to separate the two areas. The barrier is a network of fences and vehicle trenches that are surrounded be a wall approximately 8 meters high that is roughly 60 meters away from the fence. As of 2008 only about 77% of the barrier had been completed after five years of work. Several years ago when the construction began the international court gave an “advisory opinion” that the wall was contrary to international law and unfair.
These closures serve the main purpose of preventing any Palestinians from leaving occupied territory and possibly disrupting the Passover celebrations. These temporary closings are not uncommon in Israel during holidays but this time the closings are an extra precaution as it is a time of increased tensions between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Just in the past two weeks there have been several confrontations, which have been associated with six deaths of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian
civilians. To top this all off there has been increased rocket fire and fighting from Gaza into Israel.
There has been a lot of debate as to whether the Israelis are right in sealing off the West Bank or if they are becoming the bad guys and oppressing the Palestinians. Personally I think that they should be able to do whatever they want to in their own country but they should allow Palestinians to be a part of the Passover celebrations if they wish to be. It shouldn’t be difficult or hard to get the proper papers and if those are obtained the papers should be honored, no matter the denomination of the
person holding the papers.
Source 1: CNN
Source 2: West Bank
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