Israel's top court ruled yesterday that the Jewish state had a right to build a barrier on occupied West Bank land, effectively rejecting a World Court decision that the project was entirely illegal.
 
But the High Court of Justice said Israel only had the right to build sections of the barrier where the army had established security reasons for its construction.

Israel had already said it would not abide by the World Court's ruling last year and has continued erecting the planned 600 kilometers network of fences and concrete barricades, much of it on territory captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

The High Court ruled in June last year that the barrier was legal, but ordered some parts rerouted to reduce Palestinian hardship.

Israel says the barrier keeps out Palestinian suicide bombers. Palestinians call it a land grab, a complaint that the World Court endorsed in a 2004 ruling. Israel boycotted the hearings at Hague, accusing the World Court panel of bias.

Israel's highest court, responding yesterday to a Palestinian petition against the barrier route, said that there were security needs for parts of the project that made it legal.

"This comprehensive factual basis made it possible for the Court to decide that certain parts of the separation fence violate the rules of international law, and that other parts of the fence do not violate those rules," the nine-justice panel said in a unanimous ruling.

The High Court said the World Court had ruled without full access to the facts.

"The main difference between the legal conclusions stems from the difference in the factual basis laid before the court," it said.

Also yesterday, Israeli police evicted some 70 young radical Israelis who broke into the previously evacuated Jewish settlement of Sanur in the northern West Bank.

Around 46 of the group were detained for questioning after border guards and police hauled them out of the tiny enclave. The evicted protesters vowed to return to Sanur.

It was the first time protesters have reoccupied an evacuated settlement.

Meanwhile, dozens of gunmen dressed in full military fatigues set up checkpoints and stopped traffic in Gaza's evacuated Jewish settlements, doing the job of Palestinian security officials who have been unable to rein in the chaos that has ensued since Israel's withdrawal.

The gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades - a militant group linked to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah Movement - were determined to restore order and stop fellow Palestinians from looting valuable equipment from greenhouses Israel left behind.

(China Daily September 16, 2005)