Washington - The Israeli Defense Ministry has "picked up the pace" on its construction of its West Bank separation barrier near Wallaja after the Israeli High Court issued a show cause order earlier this week, Haaretz reported Thursday.

The Israeli separation barrier in Bethlehem snakes through neighborhoods, adversely affecting society and economy. [Photo: Palestine Note]

The path of the separation barrier (also called a wall, as the barrier manifests as a 35-food concrete wall in several points along its West Bank path) will surround the West Bank village on three sides and cut off its residents from large areas of land belonging to Wallaja.

Since the show cause order was issued, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) said the construction efforts have sped up. Haaretz has more:

The Palestinians and the SPNI say that since the injunction was issued, the Defense Ministry and the contractors have been working much faster than before. Yesterday, for example, there were five bulldozers and other heavy equipment working on a half-kilometer stretch of the fence, and other heavy equipment working elsewhere around the village.

"Yesterday and today they've been working like crazy," said Ahmed Barghut, a resident of Walajeh whose house is near the work site.

The Defense Ministry says the construction is continuing at the same pace as before, and that the court rejected the petition to stop the work.

"An appeals committee found the route met the demand to limit damage to the fabric of Palestinian life and took nature and landscape into consideration," it said.

The show cause order does not require work be stopped, but the state will have to explain to the court within 45 days why construction should be allowed to continue, Haaretz said.

The court hearing Sunday to discuss the Wallaja issue revealed the order to expropriate Wallaja land for the fence had expired a year ago. "The state's representative had no satisfactory explanation for this," the report said.

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