Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday to rule against Israel’s West Bank barrier for the sake of peace, as his people readied a ”day of rage” to coincide with the court’s hearings, which opened at The Hague.
Israeli police and security forces have been placed on alert amid fears of new attacks after a deadly bomb blast on a Jerusalem bus cost eight lives, apart from the Palestinian suicide bomber, on Sunday.
”The ICJ has the opportunity today to anchor the legal basis of international legitimacy, to give hope for peace and for the building of bridges of cooperation and friendship instead of the wall of annexation, expansion and apartheid,” Arafat said in a rare televised speech.
He slammed the barrier — a montage of razor wire, iron fencing, trenches, cement and sniper watchtowers that often juts deep into the West Bank — as an obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state.
”This apartheid wall … aims to deprive our people of their land and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, in conformity with international resolutions,” he said.
The ageing leader urged his people to ”let their voices be heard” against the barrier.
The Palestinian leadership declared February 23 a national day of ”rage and protest” against the barrier, and Arafat’s speech was to be followed by a series of rallies at West Bank points near the barrier.
Sirens and church bells were to sound and all traffic come to a standstill for five minutes at noon local time.
State schools dedicated the day’s first lesson to informing children about the barrier and the hearing, and civil servants and private sector employees were to observe a one-hour work stoppage.
The army said it will not use force to prevent the rallies, but troops have been ordered to prevent damage to the barrier.
Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and Justice Minister Tommy Lapid blasted the ICJ hearing, saying the court has no right to debate on the country’s ”anti-terror fence”.
”No country, no institution has the right to question Israel’s right to defend its population,” said Mofaz on public radio.
”The fence will contribute to reinforcing security. Where its contruction has been completed, it has helped reduce the number of attacks over the past few months, and that is why we will continue building it,” he added.
But Lapid reaffirmed his opposition to the decision by Israel’s government to boycott the ICJ hearing on the grounds the court is not competent to rule on such issue.
Israel submitted a written statement to The Hague instead.
”If in spite of it all, the court decides it is competent [to give its opinion] on the barrier, we should have been there to take advantage of the opportunity to speak out and make our point,” he said.
Israel says the barrier’s construction is only motivated by security considerations to avoid attacks such as Sunday’s bus bombing.
In The Hague, the head of the Palestinian delegation charged at the start of the proceedings that the barrier is not about security, but is designed to entrench the occupation of Palestinian lands.
”The wall being built on the West Bank is not about security, it’s about entrenching the occupation and the de facto annexation of large areas of the Palestinian land,” Nasser al-Qidwa, the Palestinian representative to the United Nations, told the court.
A day after the latest attack, police increased patrols in towns and surveillance at bus stations, while deploying extra forces at roadblocks and access routes in a bid to prevent infiltration by Palestinian militants.
Israeli army radio reported that the security forces had received intelligence information on about 50 attacks being prepared.
In the southern West Bank, Palestinian security sources said that Israeli troops had demolished the house of Sunday’s bomber in the village of Hussan near Bethlehem.
The attack was claimed by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a radical armed offshoot of Arafat’s mainstream Fatah movement. — Sapa-AFP