Palestinians win Israeli court battle over barrier

JERUSALEM, Sep 4 (Reuters) Palestinians in a village at the centre of violent weekly protests against Israel's controversial West Bank barrier won a Supreme Court battle today to have it rerouted.

Citing hardships facing residents of Bil'in, a three-justice panel ordered the Israeli government and military to ensure that a section of the barrier set to cut through the village's farmland should circumvent it instead.

Ruling in an appeal Bil'in residents lodged two years ago, the court said the current route risked causing ''significant harm to the (villagers') quality of life''.

Israeli security forces and protesters, including left-wing Israelis and pro-Palestinian activists from abroad, square off in weekly Friday confrontations in Bil'in in which demonstrators hurl rocks and soldiers fire tear gas and rubber bullets.

A United Nations report issued this year said Israel has completed more than half of the planned 720 km - long barrier in the West Bank.

Palestinians call the project a land grab. The International Court of Justice says the barrier is illegal because it cuts through land that Israel occupied in the 1967 West Asia war.

Israel says the vast network of concrete barriers and razor-wire fencing stops suicide bombers used to spearhead a Palestinian uprising that erupted in 2000.

REUTERS PD BD1602