ISRAEL: Just four days after the International Court of Justice in The Hague branded its West Bank security barrier illegal, the Israeli government announced last night that it was rerouting the entire barrier "as close as possible" to the Green Line - the pre-1967 border between Israel and the West Bank.
Defence Ministry officials said the dramatic change was being made not in response to the ICJ's advisory ruling, which Israel has bitterly castigated as a denial of its right to self-defence against Palestinian suicide bombers and other attackers, but to comply with a June 30th decision by the Israeli Supreme Court, which essentially required Israel to redraw the barrier to reduce the suffering it caused to tens of thousands of Palestinians.
In the new conception now being finalised, Jewish settlements originally to be encompassed by the barrier would now be frozen out, and the Defence Ministry said every effort would be made to ensure that Palestinian farmers were not separated from their lands, and that Palestinian children were not separated from their schools.
"And of course we will try not to create enclaves" of West Bank territory cut off by the barrier, a spokeswoman said.
"However, there might be cases where we have no other alternative."
As previously conceived, parts of the 425-mile barrier, a quarter of which has already been built, cut deep into West Bank territory.
Israel's announcement of the change coincided with a visit by two senior US envoys, Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, and the Middle East expert Elliot Abrams, who held two hours of talks yesterday with Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon.
Discussion focused on how to respond to the ICJ ruling, with its call for the dismantling of the barrier.
The US has indicated it would veto any resolution at the UN Security Council seeking sanctions against Israel, but both Israel and the US would rather that other Western nations - 30 of which have stated that the ICJ should not have become involved in the issue - also abstain or vote against UN resolutions condemning the barrier.
While Palestinian and other opponents have indicated that they would be satisfied only if the barrier were rebuilt entirely on Israeli territory, the radical rerouting promised by the Defence Ministry last night may help Israel garner wider European and other Western support.
The US envoys also discussed the dozens of illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank, some of which, to the mounting frustration of the Bush administration, Israel has repeatedly pledged but failed to dismantle.
Mr Sharon, who is currently preoccupied with stabilising his fracturing coalition, promised to "adhere to his commitments as soon as possible", his office said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the UN's Middle East envoy, Mr Terje Larsen, castigated the Palestinian Authority for making "no progress on its core obligation to take immediate action on the ground to end violence and combat terror."
Mr Larsen said President Yasser Arafat "has lent only nominal and partial support to the commendable Egyptian effort aimed at reforming the ailing Palestinian security services. Mr Arafat, in public and in private, \ take immediate action."
Mr Larsen's comments were publicised on a day that Palestinian extremist groups allowed international TV crews to film their summer training camps, operating in the PA-controlled Gaza Strip, in which Palestinians as young as 10 are being trained to fire rifles, carry out kidnappings and lay explosives, and told by instructors of the need to attack Israeli targets. Israel has repeatedly urged the PA to halt the summer camps, which run every year, but although the PA formally condemns the activities, it has not intervened.