AP-NY-12-29-03 0251EST
Israeli Group Asks Court to Open Barrier
By PETER ENAV
Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM (AP)--An Israeli human rights group petitioned the country's Supreme Court to permit Palestinians to move freely through gates in a security barrier completed between Israel and the West Bank.
The petition of the Jerusalem-based Association for Civil Rights in Israel, filed Sunday, followed an incident in which soldiers shot and wounded an Israeli demonstrator protesting against the barrier on Friday, setting off an outcry and two army investigations. ACRI said the two cases were not related.
The barrier's first section--about 90 miles--was finished in June. In some parts, it runs close to the invisible Green Line, the frontier between Israel and the West Bank before the 1967 Mideast War. In other areas, it dips deep into the West Bank, isolating several Palestinian villages.
The purpose of the Supreme Court petition is to allow residents of isolated Palestinian villages to move freely to their agricultural land and water supplies and to reach medical and other services in nearby Palestinian towns, said Association for Human Rights lawyer Fatmah Ajou.
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