West Bank truce linked to checkpoints

ISRAEL should remove 10 major West Bank checkpoints to give a badly needed boost to the Palestinian economy, a group of Israeli ex-generals and Palestinian officials said in a joint report yesterday.

Removing the roadblocks would not compromise security for Israel, through they cause major disruption to Palestinian trade and movement, said the report. Its authors include two former chiefs of Israel’s military government in the West Bank.

The report comes just days after the World Bank warned that the Palestinian economy is not likely to grow this year, due largely to continued Israeli restrictions on movement, and despite massive foreign aid.