GAZA CITY, 16 September 2005 — The Israeli Supreme Court yesterday ordered the government to reroute part of its West Bank wall to reduce Palestinian hardship. However, it ruled that building the wall was legal and rejected a World Court ruling last year that it breached international law and should be torn down.

In a unanimous decision of nine justices, the Supreme Court told the government to find a way to reroute a 13-km segment of the wall already built near the northern West Bank settlement of Alfei Menashe, home to 5,500 settlers.

A petition had been filed with the court on behalf of residents of five Palestinian villages who had complained that they were being cut off from the rest of the West Bank.

Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer representing the Palestinians, hailed the decision, saying: This ruling saves five villages from certain extinction.” The Defense Ministry said it was studying the ruling.

The Supreme Court also ruled that Israel had a right to build the barrier on occupied land but only where the army had established security reasons for its construction.

The court said the World Court’s advisory ruling of blanket illegality was flawed because it did not consider Israel’s security needs.

“It was unfortunate that the Israeli court rejected the decision by the highest international court on earth,” said Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat.

In a separate development, Israel’s former army chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, has canceled a planned trip to London after a complaint was filed against him and other top officers for “war crimes,” Israel’s public radio reported yesterday.

Yaalon had been invited to Britain to take part in a fund-raising event organized by an Israeli soldiers’ support group, the radio said.

Israel’s top brass risks being summoned before British courts and prosecuted for war crimes after appeals were made by rights groups who failed to get such cases heard in Israel.

A London magistrate has issued a warrant for the arrest of one of Israel’s former commanders of the Gaza Strip over his role in a 2002 bombing raid that killed 15 Palestinians, many of them children.

On Sunday, the commander Doron Almog refused to leave a plane at a London airport after being told in mid-flight that he could face arrest by British police.

— Additional input from agencies