Religious and cultural rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem is a new UN 19 pages report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. It provids shocking -but not surprising- information about the situation.

Excerpt:

Nablus, located 65 kilometres from Jerusalem, is the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank. Its population is predominantly Muslim, with Christian and Samaritan minorities. The Old City is replete with major religious sites, including 9 historic mosques, 19 Islamic monuments and a seventeenth-century church. Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy places, such as Jacob’s Well and Joseph’s Tomb, are also situated there.

At the time of writing, Nablus was encircled by 14 Israeli settlements and 26 settlement outposts. The settlements were connected to each other by a series of roads, used primarily by settlers, that stretch around the city and across the Nablus governorate. The roads are in turn linked to 10 checkpoints, including 7 encircling Nablus city. All Palestinians going in and out of Nablus were required to cross these checkpoints. In addition, more than 70 obstacles installed by the Israel Defense Forces blocked the road junctions and physically prevented Palestinian traffic from reaching the roads that were used primarily by the settlers.

In April 2007, only 10 per cent of Nablus buses (22 of 220) and 7 per cent of Nablus taxis (150 of 2,250) had permits to use the checkpoints around the city. Only 50 private Palestinian cars were permitted to use the checkpoints. The heavy restrictions on the freedom of movement in the reporting period had a serious impact on the capacity of the Nablus population to have access to places of worship situated within the governorate and in Jerusalem.

To read the full report, download it from here (PDF/DOC)!