Israeli barrier must be re-routed

JERUSALEM — Israel’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a hotly disputed 18-mile section of the massive separation barrier Israel is building in the West Bank violates “many fundamental rights” of Palestinians living in its path, and ordered that its route be changed.

Legal experts called the decision far-reaching, saying it opened the way for similar challenges along the planned 437-mile barrier, which is about one-quarter complete. The government said it would abide by the court’s decision and craft an alternate route in the sector covered under the ruling.

While stopping short of directly ordering the government to make the barrier’s path conform to the so-called Green Line, Israel’s de facto frontier, the court declared that the route, rather than the barrier itself, was unlawful.

“Were the separation fence to pass along Israel’s border, (the petitioners) would have no complaint,” Chief Justice Aharon Barak wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel.

Although limited in its immediate scope, the ruling represents a potentially major setback for the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which has mapped out a route for the barrier that runs deep into the West Bank.

Critics charge that the separation fence is meant to lay the groundwork — literally — for Israel’s eventual annexation of large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank.

In the stony, sunbaked hills just north and west of Jerusalem, news of the Supreme Court decision triggered rejoicing.

“I’m going to sacrifice a lamb — I am thanking God with all my heart,” said Fatima Abu Eid, a 60-year-old in the brightly embroidered dress of a Palestinian village woman. Her family home in the hamlet of Biddu lies yards from a 25-yard-wide gash in the hillside, where an olive grove had already been razed and concrete foundations sunk into the earth.