UN sees uneven lifting of Israeli closures in West Bank

Israel has reduced the number of West Bank roadblocks by 20 percent in the last year but the improved access is mostly concentrated in a central corridor, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

"Movement has improved in some parts of the West Bank. It's easier to go from a northern urban city to a southern urban city," said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territories.

"However, it hasn't improved when it comes to moving towards the west, towards east Jerusalem or Israel, and it hasn't improved at all when it comes to moving towards the east" and the Jordan Valley, he told reporters.

"It's really a long, vertical corridor."

Since hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assumed office in March 2009 Israel has reduced the total number of manned checkpoints, roadblocks and other barriers to 505 from a peak of 626, according to UN figures, as part of his plan for "economic peace."

The easing has dovetailed with the economic reforms of the Western-backed Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad and the influx of hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid, leading to an 8.5 percent growth rate in 2009.

However, Lazzarini said obstacles remain, especially in areas near occupied and annexed east Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and the heavily-guarded Jordan Valley, where there are vast military zones off limits to Palestinians.

OCHA estimates that some 26 percent of the West Bank consists of military zones, firing ranges and nature reserves off limits to development, farming or animal herding.

Those areas are part of the 60 percent of the West Bank known as Area C, which is under full Israeli military control and virtually off limits to any Palestinian development.

Fayyad has nevertheless vowed to build in Area C as part of an overall plan to develop all the institutions of an independent state by mid-2011.