Israel to station reserve battalions along the illegal Separation Wall

Six Israeli reserve battalions will be stationed along the illegal Separation Wall that isolates the occupied West Bank from Israel, the military announced yesterday.

The decision to call-up reserve battalions in replacement of regular forces was approved by the Chief of the Israeli Army, Aviv Kohavi, in order to prevent Palestinians from entering Israel without passing through one of the occupation’s illegal checkpoints in the West Bank.

According to the military, the call-ups, which will stretch over “several rounds”, will be done in a way “that will enable the optimal deployment of the forces in the Central Command, and maintenance of operational competence and routine training in the IDF.”

“The [reservist] call-up will enable the continued campaign to prevent assailants and illegal workers from passing through the seam zone,” the army said.

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This comes after Israeli ministers voted unanimously to allocate 300 million shekels ($93 million) to improve a 40-kilometre section of the illegal Separation Wall earlier this month.

Late Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, suggested the erection of the Separation Wall in the 1990s, but work only began during the Second Intifada in 2000.

Only 708 kilometres of the wall has been completed, comprising 62 per cent of the entire project.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that the building of a barrier in the occupied Palestinian territory is illegal and said construction must stop immediately and Israel should make reparations for any damage caused. Israel took no action with relation to this and continued to expand the structure.

Much of the structure if built on Palestinian land and not along the Green Line and in many places it separates Palestinians from their land or from relatives whose properties lie on the other side of the illegal structure.