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Israeli Wall Creates Limbo For Seam Zone Palestinians

Palestinians living between Israel's separation barrier and the Green Line are cut off from the rest of the West Bank and deprived of basic services.
Palestinian labourers queue next to a section of the controversial Israeli barrier as they wait to cross into Jerusalem at an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank town of Bethlehem March 18, 2013. U.S. President Barack Obama is due to make his first official visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories this week, looking to improve ties after sometimes rocky relations with both sides during his first term in office. Israeli settlement expansion lies at the heart of much of the rancour between Israeli Prim

The land between the 1967 armistice line, the so-called Green Line, and the separation barrier being built by Israel in and around the West Bank is referred to as the seam zone. Many of the Palestinians living there hold West Bank ID cards, but their homes are on the western, or "Israeli side," of the barrier. While some have received Jerusalem identification cards allowing them to stay in their homes and move freely in Israel and the West Bank, others have only the West Bank permit, making them technically illegal in their own homes.

Two such people are Ruqayya and her mother Kefayah. When the wall was built through the village of Hizma, north of Jerusalem, their family’s three houses were separated from the rest of the village. 

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