TEL AVIV, Dec 30: Israel’s High Court rejected on Monday an appeal by reserve soldiers refusing to serve in the occupied territories and Israeli troops shot dead a Hamas man and two other Palestinians.

The eight reservists who filed the petition had objected as a matter of conscience to serving in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, home to 3.5 million Palestinians and the focal points of a 27-month-old uprising for independence.

But a three-judge panel said it could not back the idea of “selective conscientious objection”, declaring that such a policy could loosen the bonds that hold Israelis together.

The army had argued it would harm the security of the Jewish state, which is locked in a bloody conflict with the Palestinians that shows no signs of abating.

The reservists’ view that Israel’s occupation is illegal is widely shared abroad but has been disputed by successive Israeli governments since the West Bank and Gaza were captured from Jordanian and Egyptian rule in the 1967 war.

“Today, the objection is to service in Judea and Samaria,” the court ruled, using the biblical names for the West Bank.

“Tomorrow, the objection will be against the evacuation of various (Jewish) settlements in the area,” it wrote in a reference to the 145 enclaves championed by right-wingers who are aligned with Likud party Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

A justice ministry spokesman said Israel’s army, unlike most Western countries, did not have a conscientious objection clause providing for exemption from the draft.

As a result of the ruling, one of the petitioners will return to military jail for three weeks, the daily Ha’aretz said on its Web site.

The intractable conflict has marginalized Israeli peace groups who have called for years for a withdrawal from occupied land. Israeli forces have retaken much of the West Bank in recent months following a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings.

Israel’s right-wing government signalled on Sunday it plans to strike even harder at militant groups despite Washington’s call for restraint while it seeks to shore up Arab support for a possible military strike on Iraq.

Sharon has made his crackdown on the Palestinians the cornerstone of his campaign for a Jan 28 general election, which opinion polls favour him to win.

Palestinian minister Saeb Erekat said Sharon was determined “to escalate the vicious cycle”.—Reuters