Israel moved to speed up construction of its West Bank separation barrier on Wednesday after a double suicide attack in the southern city of Beersheva that left 16 people dead.
A senior government official said that work on the southern sector of the barrier will begin on Thursday as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s spokesperson said the project will now be accelerated.
”Now we will expedite and speed up the building of the fence there [in the south of the West Bank],” said Sharon’s spokesman, Ranaan Gissin.
”We will build the fence where it provides the best protection, not where the world decides.”
The twin bus bombings on Tuesday, which left 16 people dead as well as the two bombers, were carried out by two members of the militant Islamist movement Hamas who came from the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
They were the deadliest attacks in almost a year and followed several months of relative calm.
Work on the barrier, which is eventually expected to stretch across the territory, has so far been concentrated in the north of the West Bank.
”If there was a fence in that area it would have been much harder to get into Beersheva from Hebron,” said Gissin.
The director of the seamline area administration, the body responsible for administering the border between Israel and the West Bank, said that construction on the southern section of the barrier between the large Gush Etzion settlement bloc and Levahim will start on Thursday.
”Several months ago, the defence minister decided that the southern section would be dealt with as intensively as the northern section,” Netzach Mashiach told army radio. ”Full operation of the entire section, I believe, will take place from 2005.”
Gissin said that the impact of the barrier has forced militant organisations to move their operations southwards.
”All the terrorist operations have been moved to the south as the fence is built.”
The Israeli government has come in for a welter of criticism over its construction of the barrier, with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling in July that parts built within the West Bank are illegal and should be torn down.
But Sharon has vowed to ignore the ICJ’s non-binding verdict and pursue construction although he has agreed to be bound by the judgements of Israel’s Supreme Court, which has forced construction to be halted on a number of occasions.
The Palestinians have argued that the route of the barrier, which often cuts deep inside the West Bank, shows its real intent is less to do with security but rather to pre-empt the boundaries of their promised future state.
A source close to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said the Israelis have been looking for excuse to continue with the construction.
”Israel would continue building the wall with or without yesterday’s attacks and continue building settlements and their aggressions against the Palestinians,” the aide said on condition of anonymity. ”It will just give them more reason to continue the wall. It will make their mission much easier in this regard.”
Arafat condemned Tuesday’s attack, saying operations that target civilians are against ”the Palestinian national interest”. — Sapa-AFP
Israel shaken by suicide bombers