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Israeli court freezes construction barrier { July 1 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/international/middleeast/01CND-MIDE.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/international/middleeast/01CND-MIDE.html
July 1, 2004
Israeli Court Freezes Construction of Barrier
By GREG MYRE
JERUSALEM, July 1 -- The Supreme Court froze construction today on part of the separation barrier that Israel is building on the southeastern edge of Jerusalem. A day earlier, the same court ordered the rerouting of another segment of the contentious barrier.
Today's ruling was seen as further evidence that the judiciary is prepared to take an active role in cases where Palestinians have petitioned the court, arguing that the West Bank barrier is causing great disruption to everyday life.
The three-judge panel issued a temporary restraining order that suspends building on the barrier near Har Homa, where a large Jewish neighborhood has been established over the past few years.
Palestinian residents from a nearby village, Nuaman, brought the petition to the court. The judges gave no indication whether they were likely to order a new path for the barrier, or if they might let the existing one stand, court officials said.
Israel captured the eastern part of Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war and claims the entire city as its capital. The Palestinians want eastern Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
In Wednesday's decision, the high court ordered the Israeli government to reroute about 20 miles of the barrier that was going up inside the West Bank, to the northwest of Jerusalem.
In the court's first major ruling on the barrier's route, the judges said the government needed to balance security concerns with the humanitarian needs of the Palestinians, who complained that the fence would run between their villages and their farmland. The court did not dictate a new path, and Israeli officials said they would begin working out a new route.
Israel says the barrier is intended to stop Palestinian suicide bombers, and hopes to complete it by the end of next year. But this week's court rulings could slow the project, which is about one-quarter complete.
"We do not have any opinion about the route of the fence," said Ilan Tsion, the head of the private Israeli group, Fence for Life. "We just want the fence finished as soon as possible." Opinion polls show a solid majority of Israelis support this position, he said.
But Palestinians view the barrier as an attempt to confiscate West Bank land that they are seeking for a state.
In violence today, Israeli forces operating in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, fatally shot a 9-year-old Palestinian boy, Omar Abu Zara'an, according to Palestinian security officials.
The Israeli military said it was searching for Palestinian weapons smuggling tunnels in the area, but had no information on the death of the boy.
Also, Israeli forces remained in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun for a third day, in what is expected to be an extended stay aimed at preventing Palestinian rocket fire from the area.
The Israeli forces killed a member of the Islamic faction Hamas on Wednesday night, and several Palestinians were wounded today in a pair of missile strikes, according to the Palestinian security officials.
The Israelis also uprooted olive trees that the militants have used for cover in Beit Hanun, according to the Israeli military and the Palestinian officials.
Israeli troops entered Beit Hanun on Tuesday, a day after Palestinian rocket fire killed two Israelis, including a 3-year-old boy in the town of Sederot, just outside Gaza's perimeter fence. The Palestinians have not fired any rockets from the area for the past two days, the military said.
And in an arrest sweep, Israeli troops detained more than 30 suspected militants in a rare incursion into Jericho, which has been consistently calm despite the frequent clashes in most every other West Bank town. Israel said the militants were hiding out in the town.
In another development, Israeli officials have presented the United States with a list of 28 unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank, an American Embassy official said.
Israel has pledged to take down all settlement outposts erected since March 2001, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came to power. But so far Israel has torn down only a small number of the outposts, most of them consisting of just a few mobile homes.
About 60 such outposts have been built since Mr. Sharon took office, says Peace Now, an Israeli monitoring group.
The Israeli move came as the country's foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, headed to the United States for talks with the Bush administration on issues including the West Bank separation barrier and Israel's plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza.
Mr. Shalom praised Congress's recent support for Israel, saying, "This shows the special relations that the Untied States and Israel continue to enjoy."
Both houses overwhelmingly approved resolutions last week that said it would be "unrealistic" for Israel to return to its 1967 borders, a position that has deeply disappointed Palestinians.
Mr. Shalom is to meet the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, and members of Congress over the next few days.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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