CAIRO: Israel's ministry of defense on Monday announced it was to close a checkpoint near Jerusalem. The move will ensure greater hardship for a nearby refugee camp of 65,000 people who work or need to travel to Israel. A spokesman for the ministry told Xinhua news agency that the ministry is “proceeding with its resolution to seal the Ras Hamis checkpoint from 2008,” but the official did not provide further details as to the date or how it would take occur. The checkpoint currently serves residents of the northeast Shoafat refugee camp, which brings together four Palestinian villages, located in northeast Jerusalem. Around 15,000 Palestinians pass through the checkpoint on a daily basis. Israel annexed east Jerusalem neighborhoods after the 1967 war. The neighborhoods are still within the city's municipality and its residents hold Israeli ID cards. Technically, the Shoafat refugee camp is part of the municipality, but the reality is that it is cut off from the city by the separation barrier surrounding it from three sides. Israel started erecting the barrier a decade ago, with walls and fences snaking through the area and separating Israeli territory from the West Bank, for security reasons following the 2000′s terror wave. However, Palestinians and left-wing activists charge that it is means of grabbing Palestinian land.
