Israel to shorten 'wall'

"We have decided to shorten the length of the fence by 80 kilometres," the source said, pointing out the move will reduce the overall length to 640 kilometres (just under 400 miles).

It was the second move in four days to reduce the overall length of the West Bank barrier and was clearly timed to coincide with the ongoing arguments on the barrier's legality in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which are due to finish on Wednesday.

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Earlier this week, Israeli troops began dismantling an eight-kilometre (five-mile) section that encloses the Palestinian town of Baka al-Sharkiya inside an enclave just north of Tulkarem.

According to military sources, troops will also remove another kilometer-long section which lies to the east of Qalqilia to ease travelling conditions for Palestinians.

Another 20 kilometres, which was planned to run between the villages of al-Mutilla and Teysir in the north-eastern corner of the West Bank, is also to be canned, the source said.

Israel will also scrap plans to dig a series of trenches to the north-west of Jerusalem which would fence-off thousands of Palestinians into a complex network of enclaves.

It was not immediately clear where the remaining cuts would occur.

Meanwhile, at The Hague the Arab League and Organisation of the Islamic Conference were expected to make their case against the barrier.

The Israeli government has boycotted the hearings, though it has made written submissions, saying the case is beyond the court's competence.

The UN General Assembly called on the ICJ in December to give an opinion on the legality of the barrier. No date has been set for the court to release its findings, although any verdict will be merely advisory.

As the hearings opened on Monday, Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to push on with construction regardless of any verdict, and work began Tuesday on a new 42-kilometre section (25 miles) in Beit Surik village, just north-west of Jerusalem.

An intricate montage of barbed-wire fences, deep trenches and towering concrete walls, the controversial barrier often juts deep into Palestinian territory, cutting local residents off from schools, hospitals and places of work.