Life in the West Bank behind the wall

A view of the West Bank barrier. Work on the wall started more than 13 years ago. [Photo by Peng Yining/China Daily]

A Chinese journalist takes a trip to the West Bank

I first saw it as I drove from Tel Aviv to the Dead Sea. Of course, I had heard about it but had no idea of how big it was until it stood before me.

It was a lot higher than I had imagined - in some places as high as 8 meters - a gray concrete snake winding its way up a hill and down into a valley. At least 50 meters on each side was a barren strip of land: No buildings, no flowers, no trees. It was as if this wall had a force field repelling anyone or anything that came anywhere near it.

That more or less fits the deterrent purpose the Israeli government set for the West Bank barrier when work began on it about 13 years ago, the stated aim being to thwart suicide bombings and other similar violence and save lives. The very name of this edifice is contentious, the government calling it a "security fence" or "anti-terrorist barrier" and its detractors calling it an "apartheid fence" or "apartheid wall". The government insists that the barrier, eventually planned to stretch over 700 kilometers, is temporary.

However you see the West Bank barrier, or whatever you care to call it, it symbolizes the until-now intractable conflict there and is as imposing and seems as immovable today as it did to me three years ago, when I first set eyes on it.

My first glimpse of it was distorted by a dirty window and the high-speed movement of the car, yet in that instant what I saw was as striking as the Great Wall of China would be to anyone seeing it for the first time.

The thing about walls is that as much as they keep people out, keep them in or keep them separated, they also act as great stimuli to curiosity. Who built that wall? Why did they build it? How did they build it? And, perhaps most potently, who lives on the other side?

It was that last question that exercised me over the next few days, and as the time neared for me to return to China, in my mind the wall that kept my curiosity in check finally burst; I decided to go to the West Bank.