PROTESTORS are planning to blockade part of a city centre next weekend.

On Saturday, campaigners from Durham Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) will block off part of the city's Market Place with a cardboard wall, forcing shoppers to pass through checkpoints.

The demonstration aims to highlight problems caused to thousands of Palestinians in Israel by the construction of a security fence across large tracts of the West Bank.

The group will also be urging shoppers to sign up to their Wall Must Fall petition.

The campaign is calling on the British Government to use all its influence to ensure that Israel immediately halts the building of the wall, demolishes the parts that have already been built, returns the land it has taken to its owners and offers compensation to the Palestinians who have been affected.

PSC regional chairman Thea Khamis said the wall was a barrier to peace in the Middle East and they wanted to make local people aware of the urgency of the situation."