According to rctoysadvice, January 2001 registered the failure of new negotiations, which took place in Taba (Egypt). In the course of 2000 and 2001 the living conditions of the population of the Territories worsened even more, particularly in the refugee camps (isolation of inhabited areas, restrictions on circulation, revocation of work permits, closure of schools and universities, telephone lines and pipelines water interruptions due to the excavation of Israeli trenches), while Israeli military retaliatory actions intensified, especially after the formation of a government of national unity headed by Sharon (March 2000). After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington the level of confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians increased. In December ̔Arafāt, no longer considered by Sharon a valid interlocutor for the peace negotiation, was confined to his headquarters in Rāmallāh (the Muqāṭa ̔ a), closely watched by the Israeli army. In addition, suicide attacks by Palestinian terrorists multiplied indiscriminately. In March 2002 the number of Israeli civilians killed was very high, about seventy, victims of attacks carried out in hotels, bars, buses, shopping centers: a real strategy of terror, which involved, in addition to Ḥamās, the guerrillas of Ǧ ih ā d and the Al-Aqṣā Martyrs Brigade, a terrorist group linked to al-Fat āḥ and born immediately after the outbreak of the second intif ā ḍa, whose initial secular imprint was gradually diminishing. In March-April 2002 the Territories, repeatedly closed and occupied by the Israeli army during 2001, were again invaded by tanks and bulldozers (Defensive Shield operation). Tūlkarm, Jenin, Rāmallāh, Bethlehem and Kalkilya were subjected to long and devastating attacks; in Bethlehem the fighting led to the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity, inside which some Palestinian militants and terrorists had hidden. After more than a month of negotiations, the siege ended on May 10, thanks to the mediation of the European Union; ̔Arafāt, a prisoner in the Muqāṭa ̔ a for five months, had also been released a few days earlier.
In June, the crisis appeared with no way out: all the major cities of the West Bank, which had in the meantime been evicted, were reoccupied or surrounded by the Israeli army, and an intervention by the President of the United States GW Bush conditioned the birth of the Palestinian state to the renewal of his leadership, thus severely undermining the authority of ̔Arafāt. But it was above all the Israeli decision to build a ‘security defensive barrier’ between Israel and the West Bank that canceled the long negotiation path between the parties (see fig.). Between August and September, the level of violence increased further, particularly in Gaza, where Israel’s repressive action was concentrated. On September 19th, ih ā d Islamic, a suicide attack on a bus in Tel Aviv left 6 dead and over 50 injured; the attack was considered by the Israeli government to be the responsibility of the Palestine and in particular of ̔Arafāt, guilty of not having been able to stop terrorism. As a result, a systematic destruction of the buildings was initiated in the Muqāṭa ̔ a, where ̔Arafāt was again confined; The Bush administration was also associated with the condemnation of the international community, albeit expressing distinctions. On September 29, the Sharon government lifted the siege, giving ̔Arafāt full freedom of movement. A few weeks earlier, on the 14th August, the government had approved the final route of the first phase of construction of the barrier (phase A), the preliminary works of which had already started in June: about 140 km, from the checkpoint from Salem, north of Jenin, to the colony of Elkana, in the central area of the West Bank, including the area where the Palestinian city of Kalkilya is located, located right on the border between Israel and the West Bank. Kalkilya was closed in a sort of ghetto, surrounded as it was by the fence, which to the north and south of the city made two deep forays into the West Bank to incorporate some important Israeli settlements, but also several Palestinian agricultural lands, now reachable by the legitimate owners only after prior notice. granting of transit permits. A single checkpoint was organized to control entry and exit from the city, which then numbered more than 40,000 residents, but that in the months following the construction of the fence led to a first exodus of about 6000-8000 residents, looking for a job. The three successive phases of construction of the barrier were approved between 2003 and 2005, and closed, from north to south, the whole West Bank; the fence, often significantly departing from the armistice line of 1949, the so-called Green Line, incorporated, at least temporarily, numerous portions of Palestinian territory.
