Seeking US nod, Israel redraws W.Bank barrier
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-02-09 10:12

Israel intends to shorten the route of its West Bank barrier, cutting out most of the loops around Jewish settlements in a bid to secure U.S. support for the controversial project, political sources said Sunday.

Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat, responding to the news, urged Washington to press Israel to halt construction completely for the sake of a U.S.-backed peace "road map."

The barrier -- a towering cement wall in some places and a razor wire-tipped electronic fence in others -- has restricted Palestinians' access to fields, schools and neighboring villages. Israel says it is intended to stop suicide bombers.

Launched in 2002 after a string of suicide bombings, the barrier approximated the 1967 boundary with the West Bank. But it was also slated to encircle settlement blocs deep in occupied land, a path opposed by the United States and seen by Palestinians as a land grab.

The Israeli political sources said the revised route would be presented to U.S. officials due in Israel this week to hear a plan by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to separate unilaterally from the Palestinians if the road map fails.

The International Court of Justice is to hold hearings on the legality of the barrier this month at U.N. behest. Israel's Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments Monday by an Israeli human rights group against the project.

"A ruling against Israel in The Hague would likely end up as a vote in the U.N. Security Council," a source in Sharon's office said. "We need to make sure the Americans back us, hence the effort to agree with them on the route now."

According to the source, the new draft route excludes most West Bank settlement blocs. The Haaretz newspaper quoted Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, as saying he believed the final route would be 375 miles long, 63 miles shorter than the original approved by the government.

Sharon is widely expected to cement the separation plan, which he said would leave the Palestinians with less land than they are seeking for a state, in a trip to Washington soon.

SECURITY OFFICIAL SEES ROUTE CHANGE

In Cairo, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie said he expected to meet Sharon before the end of February in an effort to revive the peace process.

Speaking at a security conference in Germany, Giora Eiland, head of Israel's National Security Council, acknowledged the barrier was causing Palestinians hardship.

"Israel should now study the full implications of the fence and take effective steps to improve them, including, where necessary, changing the original path of the fence," he said.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath urged the United States at the Munich conference not to freeze implementation of the peace road map, which envisions a Palestinian state by 2005, until after the U.S. presidential election in November.

Shaath said the European Union, Russia and the United Nations should keep the process moving if Washington did not.

"Staying inactive until November is disastrous for Palestinians and Israelis," Shaath said.

The road map has been battered by bloodshed. Sunday, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant and wounded eight others in a Gaza raid. An Israeli air strike in Gaza Saturday killed an Islamic Jihad militant leader and a 12-year-old boy.

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