RAMALLAH, West Bank, 12 July 2005 — The Palestinian Authority said yesterday it would ask the United Nations to take punitive measures against international companies whose products Israel uses in its West Bank wall project.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Qidwa named only one firm, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc., whose earth-moving machinery and bulldozers are among the equipment used by the Israeli Army to clear ground and sometimes Palestinian homes for the barrier. “We want to see some concrete measures,” Qidwa said in an interview with Reuters.

“We are proposing completely punitive measures against entities, companies and individuals that contribute to the construction of the wall and other illegal activities in the occupied Palestinian territory,” he said.

Qidwa said such measures could include undertakings by UN member states not to issue visas or work contracts to companies linked to the barrier project.

Talking to diplomats and representatives of international organizations in the West Bank separately, Qidwa said the world should press Israel to abide by international rulings. “Israel must implement the international resolutions and we ask all states... to put pressure on Israel to implement these resolutions.”

Such resolutions must also include last July’s non-binding ruling by The Hague-based International Court of Justice that parts of the barrier built on Palestinian land are illegal and should be torn down, he added. “If Israel does not implement these resolutions, Israel must be considered a state without law,” Qidwa said, urging Palestinians to demonstrate daily against the fence.

Qidwa also condemned Sunday’s decision by the Israeli Cabinet approving a new route for the controversial barrier, which will see around a quarter of the Palestinian population of east Jerusalem cut off from the rest of the city. “It blocks all the roads to peace and it is a clear challenge for the international community and the international community must do something,” Qidwa said.

Among those at the meeting were Egypt and Jordan’s envoys to the Palestinian Authority, and representatives from the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Russia, South Africa and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

In Jerusalem, visiting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said that while Israel has a right to defend itself, Brussels did not think the barrier was “legally proper” and said the barrier “creates humanitarian problems”.

“We have to be very careful of new realities on the ground that complicate the final solution,” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he added. The Arab League hit out at Israel’s new route for its West Bank separation barrier around east Jerusalem yesterday, noting that the revised plans came a year after the world court ruled that all sections on occupied land were illegal.

“This decision goes against the international community’s stand and its implementation hampers the achievement of a true peace on the basis of a two-state solution,” spokesman Hossam Zaki said.

The route approved by the Israeli Cabinet on Sunday will cut through two Palestinian neighborhoods, leaving some 50,000 Palestinian residents of occupied east Jerusalem on the West Bank side of the barrier.

Zaki deplored Israel’s continued defiance of last year’s ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague demanding that all parts of the West Bank barrier on occupied territory be dismantled.

He said the new section of the barrier around occupied east Jerusalem, which Israel said should take just a few months to put up, “should not be built”.

“Jerusalem will stay a central issue for Arabs and Muslims, not only in the region but worldwide.

Meanwhile, Israel looked yesterday to international support for its pullout from the Gaza Strip, requesting a multi-billion dollar aid package from the United States and lobbying for EU backing from its visiting foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

A senior aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that officials who have traveled to Washington would be seeking a package of aid amounting to some $2.2 billion to help cushion the impact of next month’s withdrawal.