Israel to dismantle part of West Bank barrier

10.30am

JERUSALEM - Israel will tear down part of its controversial West Bank barrier on the eve of World Court hearings challenging its legality.

Workers will start dismantling an eight kilometre section of the barrier in the northern West Bank tomorrow after soldiers removed a watch-tower, cables and lighting from the area this morning (NZ time).

Hundreds of Palestinians protested in the West Bank against the barrier today, before tomorrow's "Day of Rage" they have called to mark the start of the International Court of Justice hearings in The Hague.

"The intensive work that we have done has started to produce pressure (on Israel)," said Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath. "This work should continue until all the wall is removed."

Israeli Defence Ministry Director General Amos Yaron said the timing of the removal was unrelated to the court hearing and had been planned months in advance.

He said original plans had the barrier crossing through an inhabited area of a Palestinian village and would have forced the demolition of 40 Palestinian homes. After almost two years of local lawsuits, the decision was made to scrap it.

"(The decision) has nothing to do with The Hague -- it was planned in advance," Yaron told Army Radio. "We work according to security concerns and we take into account what goes on (in) the world and consider the needs of the Palestinians."

He said removing the barrier east of the Palestinian village of Baka al-Sharqiya, where it has separated thousands of Palestinians from families and jobs in the rest of the West Bank, would cost about 20 million shekels ($4.47 million), and not $8 million as quoted in media reports.

Israel says the barrier is to stop Palestinian suicide bombers infiltrating into its territory from the West Bank. Palestinians say it is a grab for land they want for a state.

BARRIER ROUTE CRITCISED

Defence Ministry spokeswoman Rachel Niedak-Ashkenazi said the permanent barrier in the area would be along the frontier held by Israel before it captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war.

The planned 728 km barrier, most of which is unbuilt, has been criticised internationally over plans for it to cut deep into the West Bank to encircle Jewish settlements rather than follow the 1967 frontier.

Israeli National Security Council head Giora Eiland, who is drawing up Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plans for a unilateral removal of some West Bank and Gaza Strip settlements, said basing the barrier route on the 1967 border would give it political significance and posed a security concern.

In The Hague, Israeli and Palestinian lobby groups gathered at the World Court to prepare for the hearings. With protests by both sides planned for next week, Dutch police have erected lines of barricades around the entrance to the court.

The World Court's ruling is non-binding, but Israel fears the United Nations General Assembly -- which asked for the advisory opinion and where pro-Palestinian sentiment is strong -- could use the ruling to lobby for sanctions against it.

But unlike many cases at the World Court, this time international opinion is divided. The United States, the EU, Russia, Canada, Australia and other Western countries have criticised the barrier, but also oppose the World Court case saying it may interfere with peacemaking.

- REUTERS