JERUSALEM, Sept 15: Israel’s top court on Thursday upheld the government’s legal right to build a barrier through occupied West Bank land, rejecting a World Court ruling that it violated international law and should be torn down.

But the nine Israeli Supreme Court justices also ordered the government to reroute part of the planned 600-km barrier to reduce hardship to Palestinians.

It was the court’s first judgment on the legality of the barrier since the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in July last year that the barrier was illegal because it cut into territory captured in the 1967 war.

The unanimous ruling on Thursday drew renewed Palestinian condemnation of the barrier project, which remains a major source of tension following Israel’s completion of its pullout from the Gaza Strip this week after 38 years of occupation.

Israel calls the structure a bulwark against suicide bombers. Palestinians say it is a land grab to deny them a viable state.

The network of fences and walls, now more than half completed, is seen as stark evidence of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s strategy of keeping a permanent hold on areas of the West Bank much larger than the former Gaza settlements.

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

But Israeli Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israel Radio: “The importance is the court made it legal for a fence beyond the Green Line (boundary between Israel and the West Bank) and decided the World Court ruling is not binding.”

The Supreme Court said the World Court’s blanket declaration of the illegality of the barrier was flawed because it had failed to take into account Israel’s security needs.

Israel has faced a campaign of Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks during a five-year-old Palestinian uprising also marked by fierce army raids in Palestinian areas.—Reuters