»World Court: Israel's gigantic wall is illegal«

World Court rules against Israel on barrier

The European Commission said on Friday the World Court appeared to have confirmed the European Union's view that Israel's West Bank security barrier is illegal and urged the Israelis to remove it from occupied Arab land.
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"...therefore the European Union continues to call on Israel to remove the barrier from inside the occupied Palestinian territories , including in and around East Jerusalem," spokesman Jean-Christophe Filori told a daily briefing.

According to a leaked copy of the ruling obtained by Reuters, the Court calls for the swathe of fences and walls to be torn down because it infringes the rights of Palestinian inhabitants who have been trapped in enclaves by sections that take in Jewish settlements on occupied territory.

Filori said the EU had long been concerned that the route of the barrier did not follow the 1949 armistice line between Israel and the West Bank, and that it could hinder a peaceful settlement of the Middle East conflict .

The Commission was particularly concerned that the barrier was causing humanitarian and economic hardship to Palestinians.

"Beyond the legal aspects of the case, the EU is concerned that the envisaged departure of the route from the Green Line could prejudge future negotiations and make the two-state solution physically impossible to implement ," he said.

Israel has said it would disregard the non-binding decision , calling the barrier a vital security bulwark against infiltrating Palestinian militants. Palestinians brand it a precursor to annexation of land Israel captured in a 1967 war.

Israeli officials say the barrier, about a third of whose planned more than 370-mile length has been built since 2002, has already pre-empted dozens of suicide bomb attacks. Such bombers have killed hundreds of Israelis.

Arab nations have called on the UN to take action to ensure Israel's West Bank barrier is torn down...
...Israel has said it will ignore the non-binding ruling and is counting on the US to block any action by the UN...
...Arab governments are likely to seek an emergency session of the General Assembly next week to try to secure a resolution endorsing the court's decision...
...But observers say Security Council action is unlikely - not least because the US has the power of veto.

The US, which usually vetoes anti-Israeli resolutions, has already spoken out against the ICJ ruling.

It is dividing Palestinian neighbourhoods, separating workers from their jobs, children from their schools, farmers from their fields...

"No-one's happy about this," says one. "We're doing this to feed our children.

"We worked for a company for four years, but we were fired and lost our pension. This is the only job we can find at the moment."
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When Israel is looking for labour to build the new fence, it is looking for cheap labour... so they look around and find they can have very cheap labour on the Palestinian side