Abu Dis
HUTCHEON: This is Abu Dis, home to 30,000 Palestinians. It's 6:30 a.m. and people are heading to work and school just a few kilometres away in Jerusalem. The hardest part of the journey is leaving the village - a dangerous climb over a barrier erected by Israel after a suicide bomb attack more than a year ago. Now Abu Dis is effectively divided into two.
Young men climb over wall and run through church ground
To escape the Israeli police and soldiers, some workers take a short cut through property belonging to the Catholic Church. They risk it because work is hard to find here. If caught, they can go to jail. Many foreign visitors find the wall offensive.
Tourist
TOURIST: This is not animal people. This is Palestine people. They baby cannot go to the school. The old people cannot go to the hospital. It's not possible.
HUTCHEON: Israel's rationale for the wall is security.
Super: Mina Fenton
Jerusalem City Council
MINA: Only when the terror attacks started to come more often and more often, killing innocent citizens, babies, youngsters, women, pregnant women, bombing buses, bombing cafes, we had to think how are we going to secure our inhabitants in this country?
Bulldozers in valley/Map
HUTCHEON: In this once peaceful valley below Abu Dis, bulldozers cut strips out of farmland. Two sections of the Jerusalem fence have already been completed to the north and south. The latest section cuts through the boundary of Jerusalem and the West Bank - territory administered by the Palestinian Authority. Abu Dis is on the boundary.
Construction workers with security guards
Construction workers and surveyors are protected by security guards armed with submachine guns. They don't like it when you get too close.
Part of the sensitivity is that Israel wants the wall finished as quickly as possible with minimum publicity.
People climb over wall
Not only is the wall destroying livelihoods, it's creating social havoc for thousands of families. Abu Dis villagers are either Palestinian-Jerusalemites, or residents of the West Bank. Once it didn't matter.
Boullata family at table
Terry Boullata and her family live on the Jerusalem side of Abu Dis. But while she and her daughters hold Jerusalem IDs, her husband, Salah, has West Bank papers. He's not legally entitled to live here. More than 40,000 Palestinians share this problem because of the Jerusalem wall.
Super: Terry Boullata
School Principal
TERRY: My husband is a West Banker because his house lived within the West Bank area when the borderline was drawn by the Israelis in '67. So he's a West Banker and he shouldn't be living within Jerusalem borders like me.
Terry climbs wall
HUTCHEON: Terry is the principal of a primary school in Abu Dis. She's free to travel in and out of the village, but, like everyone else, it's not a simple journey. She could move house across the wall, but then forfeits the right to live in Jerusalem. Her husband, Salah, with West Bank ID, has no such privilege.
Terry
TERRY: If I move into Abu Dis with him, for example, to be in the West Bank area where it is safer for him, it will deprive me in seven years my residential rights as a Jerusalemite, as a Palestinian-Jerusalemite.
Terry with school children
HUTCHEON: Many of her pupils will face similar problems. Soon Abu Dis will be a village of divided families. Paradoxically, there were once big plans for Abu Dis. Terry Boullata's husband, Salah, explains that years ago Palestinian and Israeli negotiators made a secret deal to turn Abu Dis into the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Hutcheon and Salah in parliament building
HUTCHEON: So this is the Parliament?
SALAH: Yes. They began to build it in '97 to be the Palestinian Parliament.
HUTCHEON: But all work on this $15 million Parliament House stopped when the violence flared three years ago. Now plans for a capital are in disarray, like the latest Middle East peace plan. Abu Dis residents have a new nightmare.
Super: Salah Ayyad
Abu Dis Resident
SALAH AYYAD: Now in the area here about 60,000 people without hospital, without many kind of services. We get electricity from Jerusalem, the water, everything, you know. And now there is a wall.
Elderly peoples home
HUTCHEON: A Catholic home for the elderly is situated a few metres from the wall. Helmut Konitzer has watched Abu Dis deteriorate since the temporary barrier was put up on August 13 last year.
Super: Helmut Konitzer
Notre Dame Home for the Elderly
KONITZER: The 13th of August is a relevant day for the Germans - originally I'm from Germany - because it's the same day that the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, so for somebody being here, it's very remarkable coincidence to see something again.
HUTCHEON: Israel says it's been forced to build the wall to stop terrorism, but it's not a permanent solution.
Super: Mina Fenton
Jerusalem City Council
MINA FENTON: We hope that everything is going to be temporary and we hope that the leaders of the world will recognise the real situation that Israel is in. After all these years, after the holocaust where 6 million Jews were slaughtered, hardly any country, any head of country spoke out, defended, stopped it. We are now in our own country. The whole world should be on our side.
Hutcheon with Terry
HUTCHEON: In Abu Dis, they call it the apartheid wall.
Super: Terry Boullata
School Principal
TERRY BOULLATA: What's the future for our children? They talk about the security of their children and they care less for the security of our children. Aren't we human beings?
School girl climbs over wall
HUTCHEON: For now, Israel's focus is on building its concrete wall and up to future generations to decide its eventual fate.
Credits:
Reporter: Jane Hutcheon
Camera/sound: Louie Eroglu
HUTCHEON: This is Abu Dis, home to 30,000 Palestinians. It's 6:30 a.m. and people are heading to work and school just a few kilometres away in Jerusalem. The hardest part of the journey is leaving the village - a dangerous climb over a barrier erected by Israel after a suicide bomb attack more than a year ago. Now Abu Dis is effectively divided into two.
Young men climb over wall and run through church ground
To escape the Israeli police and soldiers, some workers take a short cut through property belonging to the Catholic Church. They risk it because work is hard to find here. If caught, they can go to jail. Many foreign visitors find the wall offensive.
Tourist
TOURIST: This is not animal people. This is Palestine people. They baby cannot go to the school. The old people cannot go to the hospital. It's not possible.
HUTCHEON: Israel's rationale for the wall is security.
Super: Mina Fenton
Jerusalem City Council
MINA: Only when the terror attacks started to come more often and more often, killing innocent citizens, babies, youngsters, women, pregnant women, bombing buses, bombing cafes, we had to think how are we going to secure our inhabitants in this country?
Bulldozers in valley/Map
HUTCHEON: In this once peaceful valley below Abu Dis, bulldozers cut strips out of farmland. Two sections of the Jerusalem fence have already been completed to the north and south. The latest section cuts through the boundary of Jerusalem and the West Bank - territory administered by the Palestinian Authority. Abu Dis is on the boundary.
Construction workers with security guards
Construction workers and surveyors are protected by security guards armed with submachine guns. They don't like it when you get too close.
Part of the sensitivity is that Israel wants the wall finished as quickly as possible with minimum publicity.
People climb over wall
Not only is the wall destroying livelihoods, it's creating social havoc for thousands of families. Abu Dis villagers are either Palestinian-Jerusalemites, or residents of the West Bank. Once it didn't matter.
Boullata family at table
Terry Boullata and her family live on the Jerusalem side of Abu Dis. But while she and her daughters hold Jerusalem IDs, her husband, Salah, has West Bank papers. He's not legally entitled to live here. More than 40,000 Palestinians share this problem because of the Jerusalem wall.
Super: Terry Boullata
School Principal
TERRY: My husband is a West Banker because his house lived within the West Bank area when the borderline was drawn by the Israelis in '67. So he's a West Banker and he shouldn't be living within Jerusalem borders like me.
Terry climbs wall
HUTCHEON: Terry is the principal of a primary school in Abu Dis. She's free to travel in and out of the village, but, like everyone else, it's not a simple journey. She could move house across the wall, but then forfeits the right to live in Jerusalem. Her husband, Salah, with West Bank ID, has no such privilege.
Terry
TERRY: If I move into Abu Dis with him, for example, to be in the West Bank area where it is safer for him, it will deprive me in seven years my residential rights as a Jerusalemite, as a Palestinian-Jerusalemite.
Terry with school children
HUTCHEON: Many of her pupils will face similar problems. Soon Abu Dis will be a village of divided families. Paradoxically, there were once big plans for Abu Dis. Terry Boullata's husband, Salah, explains that years ago Palestinian and Israeli negotiators made a secret deal to turn Abu Dis into the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Hutcheon and Salah in parliament building
HUTCHEON: So this is the Parliament?
SALAH: Yes. They began to build it in '97 to be the Palestinian Parliament.
HUTCHEON: But all work on this $15 million Parliament House stopped when the violence flared three years ago. Now plans for a capital are in disarray, like the latest Middle East peace plan. Abu Dis residents have a new nightmare.
Super: Salah Ayyad
Abu Dis Resident
SALAH AYYAD: Now in the area here about 60,000 people without hospital, without many kind of services. We get electricity from Jerusalem, the water, everything, you know. And now there is a wall.
Elderly peoples home
HUTCHEON: A Catholic home for the elderly is situated a few metres from the wall. Helmut Konitzer has watched Abu Dis deteriorate since the temporary barrier was put up on August 13 last year.
Super: Helmut Konitzer
Notre Dame Home for the Elderly
KONITZER: The 13th of August is a relevant day for the Germans - originally I'm from Germany - because it's the same day that the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, so for somebody being here, it's very remarkable coincidence to see something again.
HUTCHEON: Israel says it's been forced to build the wall to stop terrorism, but it's not a permanent solution.
Super: Mina Fenton
Jerusalem City Council
MINA FENTON: We hope that everything is going to be temporary and we hope that the leaders of the world will recognise the real situation that Israel is in. After all these years, after the holocaust where 6 million Jews were slaughtered, hardly any country, any head of country spoke out, defended, stopped it. We are now in our own country. The whole world should be on our side.
Hutcheon with Terry
HUTCHEON: In Abu Dis, they call it the apartheid wall.
Super: Terry Boullata
School Principal
TERRY BOULLATA: What's the future for our children? They talk about the security of their children and they care less for the security of our children. Aren't we human beings?
School girl climbs over wall
HUTCHEON: For now, Israel's focus is on building its concrete wall and up to future generations to decide its eventual fate.
Credits:
Reporter: Jane Hutcheon
Camera/sound: Louie Eroglu