State Must Dismantle and Reroute The Annexation Wall near Jayous and Azoun

The Center for the Defense of the Individual and Palestinian residents won approval, on Thursday morning, for their petition filed before The High Court of Justice. 

The High Court ordered the state to dismantle the Annexation Wall where it encircles the West Bank settlement of Tzufin, creating an enclave that deviates from the Green Line boundary that separates from the West Bank.The court ruling said that the state must dismantle the Wall within six months from the day an alternate fence route is completed. This plan for this has been submitted but has not yet received approval. The Wall, as it stands now, cuts into lands belonging to the Palestinian villages of Jayous and Azoun.

 In 2002, the petition was filed against the routing of the fence around Tzufin.The state then announced the Annexation Wall would continue across the adjacent hill to the east of the settlement, but it hid the fact that political factors rather than just security factors were taken into consideration when determining the Wall’s route. The state had given a security-related rationale for running the Separation Wall around  Tzufin. On this basis the High Court originally had rejected the petition.

 However, in the wake of the petition filed by the Center for the Defense of the Individual and residents of Azoun and Nebi Elias, the state "acknowledged" that the continuation of the fence to the east of Tzufin was not in order to create observation points down onto Road 55 but rather to advance a plan to create an industrial zone in Tzufin.