The separation wall will cut off some 55,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem from the rest of the city, Israeli ministers decided during a weekly cabinet meeting Sunday.

According to the local newspaper Ha'aretz, the government also set September 1 as the new deadline for completing the construction of the fence.

The government approved a plan to address the "daily life" issues of Jerusalem's Palestinian population who will be affected by the barrier.

Under this plan, the Jerusalem municipality will make arrangements to ease passage at the fence and to bus students from one side to the other, as well as procedures for administering medical and humanitarian services to those in need.

The cabinet ministers were told that the Jerusalem fence will include 12 passage gates, and that schools, post offices and National Insurance branches will be built on the other side of the fence, in order to alleviate the life situation of the residents caught behind it. Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will oversee the implementation of the plan.

Deputy Construction Minister Avraham Ravitz said "we want the changes to remain unfelt, so that leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians outside the fence will not cause them to feel isolation and inability to function."

More than 200,000 Palestinians now live in the East Jerusalem.

Palestinians held an anti-wall rally on Friday near the West bank city of Nablus, demanding the immediate dismantling of the racist fence and chanted anti-Israel slogans.

The protest rally coincided with the first anniversary of the International Court of Justice's verdict declaring  nullification of the fence meandering through the West Bank lands.

(Xinhua News Agency July 11, 2005)