East to West, the flight has begun. Israel’s controversial “separation barrier”, expanding inexorably over wadis and high streets, is near completion along large stretches of its route. Slab by 30ft slab, it seals off Jewish-majority West Jerusalem to protect it from West Bank suicide bombers. Except that the wall designed to keep out Palestinians has driven thousands of them into inner Jerusalem.

Most East Jerusalem Arabs lucky enough to hold the much-prized Israeli Jerusalem identity cards granting them residency rights have already slipped inside the concrete curtain before its gates slam shut.

The result is drastic social and demographic changes to the outskirts of a Biblical city that is now twice-walled — from some vistas Ariel Sharon’s concrete legacy is clearly visible outside Suleiman the Magnificent’s Old City ramparts.

The “outer” neighbourhoods now lie half-deserted, abandoned by those able and wealthy enough to move.

In the “inner” suburbs the laws of supply and demand have doubled rents and increased land prices in Arab neighbourhoods and even — irony of ironies — forced the new arrivals into Jewish areas. “Many Arabs are moving into the settlements because they are very close to the Arab areas,” said Raed Jaber, a 27-year-old Arab from al-Eizariya, who now owns a creperie serving the overwhelmingly Jewish residents of the settlement of Pisgat Zeev.

“I’ll move in myself in a year or so when I get married,” he shrugs, dismissing antipathy from religious Jews who have leafleted the area urging residents not to rent to Arabs.

Pisgat Zeev is regarded as a neighbourhood of Jerusalem by Israel, but lies beyond the green line and was built on land captured by Israel in the 1967 war.

Critics regard the half-finished 450-mile West Bank “separation barrier” as a “land grab” by the Jewish State.

United Nations mapping experts say that it slices off 10.1 per cent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem claimed by Palestinians for their future state.

Israel insists that it is a security or anti-terrorist fence, vital to protect its citizens.

“It gives a more clear line of the perimeter of the city,” said Miri Eisin, a spokesman for Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister. “We say, and say cautiously, that this line is not a future border. It is a line which has made a very big difference from that stroll that it used to be for those who came to blow themselves up in Jerusalem.”

On its website the Israeli Ministry of Defence points out that it only becomes a wall — it prefers the euphemism “solid barrier system” — along a small fraction of its route in densely populated urban areas such as Jerusalem and “to prevent sniper fire into Israel and on major highways and roads”. A few minutes’ drive north of Jerusalem city centre the Arab neighbourhood of Dahiyat al-Bareed lies just on the wrong side, by a few metres. Here the towering barricade divides streets and even families, local frustration registered by “Victory to Hassan Nasrallah” and a swastika daubed on the bare concrete. Taxis and commuters can still flit through a narrow gap left for builders to complete the final section, but this is expected to close within weeks. The exodus is evident. Streets are empty, the school roll has fallen from 1,500 to 500 pupils, blocks of flats have lost 80 per cent of their tenants and businesses have closed, moving north to Ramallah.

Increasingly discernible is the influx of poorer, socially conservative West Bankers, drawn by falling rents.

Yellow-plated Israeli car numberplates are being replaced by green Palestinian ones, more women are veiled, East Jerusalemites are disappearing from offices and classrooms, and shopkeepers have noticed the arrival of Jenin and Nablus accents, raising security concerns.

“The moment they started digging the wall here, people started packing and moving. Now 90 per cent of the homeowners have gone,” sighed Hani Bakir, 42. “Crime has increased, shops are being looted and houses broken into.”

A mile south lives Enas Muthaffar, a Palestinian filmmaker whose 2005 documentary East to West recorded her family’s move from “outer” Ar-Ram to “inner” Beit Hanina.

“We had to move inside to keep our Jerusalem IDs, because of the health services, so my dad can get to work, to stay in contact with family and friends and simply to have access to Jerusalem without a permit,” she said.

A 2006 study by the refugee rights agency Badil found that 17.3 per cent of 5,100 Jerusalem Palestinians surveyed moved because of the wall.

But Asmahan Amleh, a 48-year-old mother of six, who moved to Jerusalem years ago, says that economics is less important than the city’s huge religious significance for Arabs, as for Jews: “It is the city from which the Prophet Muhammad was raised to the sky. Whoever has a Jerusalem identity can’t even think of letting it lapse.”

Wall to wall

• 493 Length of West Bank barrier in miles

• 251 miles have been completed

• £2 million Cost per mile

• 50% Amount by which rents have fallen in areas cut off

  Source: news agencies

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