Friday, July 30, 2004
The project has faced many challenges recently.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel is rerouting its West Bank barrier to move it closer to the 1967 pre-war boundary, but it will still jut into the occupied territory to encircle major Jewish settlements, a Defense Ministry official said Thursday.
The disclosure of the fence's new route by Nezah Mashiah, head of the barrier project in the Defense Ministry, was a sign that recent international and domestic challenges would not deter Israel from keeping Jewish settlement blocs on the "Israeli side" of the barrier.
The barrier is an integral part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan of "unilateral disengagement" from the Palestinians. The plan envisions an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements by late next year.
Violence
In Gaza on Thursday, an Israeli missile strike on a Palestinian car killed two militants and sparked calls for revenge. Israel said the two belonged to the Ahmed Abu Reish Brigade, an extreme breakaway from Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
One of the dead was identified as Amr Abu Suta, a militant leader whom Israel accused of involvement in the 1992 killing of three Israeli soldiers in a Jewish settlement in Gaza.
Sharon's response to nearly four years of Palestinian-Israeli violence has been to announce a pullout from Gaza and the construction of a 425-mile barrier between Israel and the West Bank.
In Gaza just before daybreak today, Israeli troops moved to the outskirts of the northern town of Beit Lahiya, residents said. Israeli forces have held neighboring town of Beit Hanoun for a month, trying to prevent militants from firing rockets at Israeli towns just outside Gaza.
The barrier project has faced stiff challenges in recent weeks. The Netherlands-based International Court of Justice and a U.N. General Assembly resolution called on Israel to tear down the wall, and the Israeli Supreme Court ordered a repositioning of a key section.