Military

DATE=06/16/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS 1st short update

NUMBER=2-291024

BYLINE=ROSS DUNN

DATELINE=JERUSALEM

CONTENT=

VOICED AT

///EDS: UPDATES CR-291011///

INTRO: Israel began construction Sunday of a security fence around the West Bank in a bid to prevent more terror attacks, angering both Palestinians and Israeli right-wingers. Ross Dunn reports from Jerusalem.

TEXT: As construction began on the new fence, one Palestinian cabinet minister, Saeb Erekat, accused Israel of seeking to divide the territory into cantons.

He says the final result will, in his words, "start a new apartheid system worse than the one that existed in South Africa."

The West Bank is home to some two-million Palestinians and 200-thousand Jewish settlers. Many in both groups will be living in what for them will be the "wrong" side of the new fence, with access in and out of the territory controlled by the Israeli army.

Members of the Yesha council, which represents the Jewish settlers, fear settlers will be left isolated.

The issue resulted in a heated exchange of words in Sunday's Israeli cabinet meeting between ministers on the left who support the fence and those on the right, who are vehemently opposed to it.

The chairman of the National Religious Party, Mr. Effi Eitam, said the new fence would be interpreted internationally as defining the nation's political boundaries. (Signed)

NEB/RD/DW