World Court demands Israel pulls down barrier

9.15am

THE HAGUE - The World Court strongly condemned Israel's West Bank barrier as illegal Friday, saying it imposed hardship on thousands of Palestinians and must be torn down.

The court said in a nonbinding ruling hailed by Palestinians and rejected by Israel that the barrier violated international humanitarian law. It called on the UN Security Council and General Assembly to stop the barrier's construction.

But the United States, which has vetoed Security Council resolutions against the Jewish state in the past, dismissed the court's intervention and an American judge on the 15-member panel did not back the ruling.

"The construction ... constitutes breaches by Israel of its obligations under applicable international humanitarian law. Israel is under an obligation ... to dismantle forthwith the structure," the court's head judge, Shi Jiuyong of China, said in the ruling.

The route of the 370-mile barrier, about a third built, "severely impeded" Palestinian rights to self-rule, he said. It curves at points deep into the West Bank around Jewish settlements built on land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

The court, the U.N.'s top legal body, acknowledged Israel had a duty to protect its citizens but said it must do so within the law and should compensate Palestinians for homes and land lost or damaged by the building of the barrier.

"The court considers that the construction of the wall and its associate regime creates a 'fait accompli' on the ground that could well become permanent, in which case ... it would be tantamount to de facto annexation," said the ruling.

Israel was forthright in its rejection of the ruling, saying not one suicide bomber had managed to slip into the Jewish state wherever it had constructed the barrier of razor wire-tipped fences, cement walls and ditches.

"They can say the earth is flat. It won't make it legal, it won't make it true and it won't make it just," Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Britain's Sky television.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said: "This is a victory for the Palestinian people and for all the free peoples of the world."

While Israel says the barrier is vital to protect its citizens from suicide bombers, Palestinians say it is a land grab that robs them of territory they want for a state.

The barrier has trapped thousands of Palestinians in enclaves cut off from fields, schools, markets, public services and cities.

Arab envoys said the Palestinians would ask the UN General Assembly next week to adopt a nonbinding resolution affirming the court's ruling.

President Bush's administration brushed aside the ruling, saying the World Court -- formally the International Court of Justice -- was not the right place to settle the issue.

"It remains our view that this referral to the court was inappropriate and that, in fact, it could impede efforts to achieve progress toward a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Palestinians," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

Washington has been trying to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to revive a stalled U.S.-backed peace "road map."

The UN General Assembly requested an opinion on the barrier in December and the World Court held hearings in February overshadowed by public lobbying from both sides.

Palestinians tend to enjoy considerable support at the U.N.

Israel looks to a US veto in the Security Council to block any bid to punish it in the way that apartheid South Africa was after the World Court ruled its occupation of South West Africa, now Namibia, was illegal in 1971.

About 150 demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and holding banners reading "Boycott Israel" and "Away with Apartheid" gathered outside the court.

"I hope there will be sanctions and I hope Israel will be forced to tear down that wall," said Mariejose van Overveld, a 54-year-old Dutch housewife wrapped in a Palestinian flag.

Eliad Moreh, a 28-year-old who was injured in a bombing at Jerusalem's Hebrew University in 2002, said: "I feel revolted. Israel is punished for trying to protect its citizens while the Palestinian terrorists have been given a license to kill."

Last week, Israel's top court ordered one segment of the barrier rerouted to avoid cutting off Palestinian villagers from farms, jobs, public services and cities but ruled Israel had a right to build it in the West Bank on security grounds.

"We will abide by the ruling of our own High Court and not the panel in The Hague with judges from the European Union who are not suspected of being particularly disposed toward Israel," Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said earlier Friday.

- REUTERS