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Seam Zone

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Seam Zone (Hebrew: מרחב התפר) is a term used to refer to a land area in the Israeli-occupied West Bank located east of the Green Line and west of Israel's separation barrier, populated largely by Israelis in settlements such as Alfei Menashe, Ariel, Beit Arye, Modi'in Illit, Giv'at Ze'ev, Ma'ale Adumim, Beitar Illit and Efrat. As of 2006, it was estimated that about 57,000 Palestinians lived in villages located in enclaves in the seam zone, separated from the rest of the West Bank by the Wall (according to the ICJ Wall Case opinion). The United Nations estimated that if the series of walls, fences, barbed wire and ditches is completed along its planned route, about a third of West Bank Palestinians will be affected—274,000 will be located in enclaves in the seam zone and about 400,000 separated from their fields, jobs, schools and hospitals. The Supreme Court of Israel ordered changes to the barrier route to reduce the number of people leaving or affected by the seam zone—according to the court verdict the number now stands at 35,000. In July 2006, B'Tselem forecast that 8.5 percent of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, would be situated in the seam zone. This area also contains ninety-nine Israeli settlements (including twelve in East Jerusalem) in several densely populated areas near the Green Line—areas that Geneva Accord suggested could be transferred to Israel as part of a mutually agreed land-swap with the Palestinians. According to a 2004 estimate, the Seam Zone is home to some 381,000 Israeli settlers (192,000 in East Jerusalem).

What the highlighted wording does
1
㉓ Reviewed in the sweep
The Seam Zone is the strip of West Bank land between Israel's separation barrier and the 1949 armistice line, home to over 57,000 Palestinians and a number of Israeli settlements. Through 2010 the opening explained the barrier plan was drafted "with the intent of reducing the ability of terrorists to infiltrate Israel from areas administered by the Palestinian Authority." Today the opening carries neither the word nor the stated rationale, though it survives once in the body. A reader today learns the zone's population and settlement counts and not that the barrier's stated purpose was blocking terrorist infiltration during the wave of suicide bombings after September 2000.
The same lead, over time
The article text above is from "Seam Zone" by Wikipedia contributors, reproduced unmodified under CC BY-SA 4.0. The highlights and numbered findings are ours: Shoresh, ilroot.com. Our copy of this lead was retrieved on 2026-05-13 and is held in our published data so the comparison survives any future edit.