UN aid chief attacks new Israeli checkpoint plan

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem, The Guardian, 19.11.07 The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees launched a scathing attack today on a new Israeli plan for a system of checkpoint terminals across the occupied West Bank. Karen AbuZayd, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said Israeli authorities had told them of plans to install six specially built terminals to check people and cargo, including aid deliveries. She said it would hamper the agency's work and dramatically raise costs. "An insidious new regime to limit freedom of movement is threatening to further stifle economic activity and smother social interaction between villages and towns in the West Bank," AbuZayd said today at a meeting of UNRWA donors in Amman, Jordan. Under the new system, UNRWA expects the annual cost of transporting and delivering aid is likely to treble from $220,000 (£110,000) this year to $720,000 next year. "It is obvious that these new procedures will result in loss of time and an exponential increase in costs," AbuZayd said. There are already 563 obstacles in the West Bank, from permanent checkpoints to earth mounds, according to the UN. "Unless access is assured, there will be a high human cost," said AbuZayd. "More lives will be lost, public health will suffer and the standards of education will fall. The resulting sense of isolation and abandonment accompanied by an increase in radicalism serves no one's interests."

Israeli officials said the terminals were intended to "streamline" crossings. The new checkpoint policy comes at a time when Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in a new round of talks ahead of a summit expected next week in the US in Annapolis, which is intended to restart peace negotiations.