A Palestinian woman waters dozens of plants near her desert home, each growing from used tear gas canisters collected in years of clashes with Israeli soldiers.
(DailyMail)- Her curious garden, photographed today, is in the village of Bilin, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, the de facto capital of the State of Palestine.
Much of the territory is disputed. Israel continues to expand settlements in the West Bank which the international community have long ago ruled to be illegal.
The flowers, with their unusual pots, mark land Palestinians were able to reclaim two years ago after a court battle to re-route Israel’s controversial security wall.
Still under construction, the Israeli West Bank barrier is a security wall that will eventually stretch 430 miles around the entire West Bank region.
Israel argues that the barrier is needed to protect its people from Palestinian terrorism, and since construction began the number of suicide bombing attacks have fallen significantly.
But critics of the policy object that the route of the barrier deviates substantially from internationally agreed boundaries into territories occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.
They argue that it uses security concerns to mask an illegal attempt to annex Palestinian land.