Israel's vast barrier in the West Bank will have severe humanitarian consequences for about 680,000 Palestinians, a third of the Palestinian population in the area, a UN report said today.
Based on a map of the route approved by Israel, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian Territory found the barrier will cut off some 14.5 per cent of Palestinian land from the rest of the West Bank.
The area, between Israel-proper and where the barrier juts into the West Bank, is home to more than 274,000 Palestinians living in 122 villages and towns, the report said.
A senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official dismissed the findings as nonsense.
The official said no more than four per cent of West Bank territory, where some 14,000 Palestinians live, would end up west of the still uncompleted barrier.
The report made no mention of a three-year-old Palestinian uprising or Israel's declared reason for building the barrier: keeping suicide bombers away from its cities.
It said the barrier "will have severe humanitarian consequences" for some 30 percent of the Palestinian population in the West Bank.
"More than 400,000 other Palestinians living to the east of the wall will need to cross (the wall) to get to their farms, jobs and services," the report said. "This means that approximately 680,000...will be directly harmed by the wall."
It said Israel appeared to have given little consideration to the barrier's impact on Palestinian lives.
"More people, unable to reach their land to harvest crops, graze animals or to reach work to earn money to buy food, will be hungry," the report said.