Israel pulls down barrier section

Sunday, February 22, 2004 Posted: 1:33 AM EST (0633 GMT)
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel has started to pull down a five-mile section of the barrier that deviates into the West Bank from the border established in 1967.
The section cuts into the West Bank around the Palestinian town of Baka al-Sharqiya, leaving about 7,000 Palestinian residents on the Israeli side of the barrier.
Israel Defense Ministry spokeswoman Rachel Nidek-Ashkenazi said the barrier would be removed. An existing section of fence -- built along the "Green Line" border established in 1967 -- blocks off the town from Israel.
Palestinian security sources reported a number of demonstrations in the West Bank on Saturday, against both the barrier and Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.
In Nablus, about 2,000 demonstrators, among them gunmen who fired assault rifles in the air, marched in memory of dead members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
In other towns and cities around the West Bank, including Ramallah, Tulkarem, Qalqilya and Jenin, hundreds of demonstrators protested against Israel's barrier, security services reported.