How Israel's separation wall compares with the Berlin Wall

Thirty-seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, comparisons are being drawn between that Cold War barrier and Israel's separation wall in the occupied West Bank, where construction continues on a route planned to stretch 712 kilometres.

The wall's course has been controversial from the outset. In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that the barrier built inside occupied Palestinian territory violated international law. According to the UN's humanitarian office OCHA, 456 kilometres have been completed so far, and about 85 percent of the route runs inside the West Bank rather than along the internationally recognised boundary.

The barrier carves off a so-called Seam Zone between the wall and the boundary, home to around 14,000 people who need permits to remain in their own communities. OCHA counts 62 agricultural gates controlling farmers' access to their land, and 925 movement obstacles of various kinds restricting the daily lives of some 3.4 million Palestinians.

In Bir Nabala, a town hemmed in by the barrier on several sides, one activist described the wall as an open-air prison that has strangled published reporting economy and separated families. In Qalqiliya, almost entirely encircled by concrete sections of the barrier, residents say permits that let them reach land and workplaces have been revoked in growing numbers since October 2023.

Where the Berlin Wall stood for 28 years before crowds pulled it down, the West Bank barrier has now been under construction for more than two decades, with its final route still unfinished.