Touring Israel's Barrier With Its Main Designer

"It is easier for me to go to Venezuela than to the Damascus Gate," says Salah Ayyad, a Palestinian city councilman born in Jerusalem's Old City who can visit only with Israeli permission. (By Scott Wilson/Post)

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In June, Israel's high court ordered the government to explain within two months why Palestinians are barred from the highway, an inconvenience that has made classrooms, hospitals and jobs more remote for thousands of them.

North of Jerusalem, the highway runs between At-Tira and Beit Ur Al-Fauqa, a pair of Palestinian villages inside the West Bank whose children attend a small pine-shaded school situated between them.

The school's playground sits in the shadow of the separation barrier. Most of the school's 330 children live in At-Tira and must pass beneath the highway through a tunnel Tirza opened to accommodate them.

"This cost a lot of money," explained Tirza, who said he worked with Palestinians along the barrier's route to find the least disruptive path. "But I tried to minimize the impact."

But Ahmed Abu Bakr, the 55-year-old school principal, said he never met Tirza. "The decisions that affect us are in the hands of the Jews, not our own," he said.

The school's main gate, adjacent to the wall, has been padlocked by Israel's army, which patrols the area to protect a nearby Jewish settlement and Israeli commuters using the highway. Abu Bakr said the children study in fear.

"I feel like I'm surrounded here," he said. "There's no connection between the school and the At-Tira municipality. We're all alone."

Qalqilyah

Farther north, the wall encircles the West Bank city of Qalqilyah and has helped fuel political change at odds with Israel's interests.

Cars enter Qalqilyah through an Israeli checkpoint. The city's farmers must pass through Israeli-operated gates to work their avocado, olive and citrus groves outside the wall.

During the uprising, Qalqilyah served as a transit point for suicide bombers from the northern West Bank. In 2002, the Israeli army kept the city closed for 215 days. Tirza said there have been no closures since the wall was completed around the city nearly three years ago.

By then, the armed Islamic movement Hamas had won many converts in the economically ravaged city, through its charity networks and militant message against Israel. The party won every council seat in the May 2005 municipal elections.

"There is a problem with hatred," Tirza said, as Israeli army jeeps buzzed around the wall's perimeter. "The main problem now with this separation is that they don't know us anymore."