European Union and Arab diplomats reached agreement at the U.N. General Assembly late on Tuesday on the text of a resolution demanding that Israel stop building a barrier deep into West Bank lands.

The compromise text, to be sponsored by all 15 EU nations, would demand that Israel "stop and reverse the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory" and would call the barrier "in contradiction to relevant provisions of international law."

Israeli soldiers open a gate in a security fence, built by Israel to separate Israel from the West Bank, for a Palestinian boy returning from school to his village near the West Bank city of Tulkarm Oct. 21, 2003. A top U.N. official said that Israel had accelerated construction of a barrier across Palestinian land in recent weeks and urged it to halt the project and tear down the 90-mile section already built.   [Reuters]

An earlier version, drafted by Palestinian U.N. envoy Nasser al-Kidwa and endorsed by Arab governments, would have declared the wall to be a violation of international law that "must be ceased and reversed."

As part of the deal, Arab envoys agreed to drop a second resolution that would have called on the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion on whether the barrier was illegal. The court, a branch of the United Nations, judges disputes between countries and is based in the Netherlands.

U.S. diplomats and some EU governments argued that bringing the U.N. court into the dispute could have further politicized the Middle East peace process and prejudged issues better left to later negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

At EU members' insistence, the draft, awaiting a vote in the 191-nation U.N. General Assembly later on Tuesday evening, also contained new language condemning a recent deadly suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel, and an attack in Gaza that resulted in the deaths of three U.S. security officers.

Arab diplomats had earlier ruled out any mention of the Haifa attack in the resolution.

'SECURITY FENCE' OR LAND GRAB?

The barrier, which the Israelis call a "security fence," is already 90 miles long. It is in some places a fence with electronic sensors and in others a concrete wall up to 25 feet high that is flanked by trenches, barbed wire and a patrol road.

The assembly had been expected to vote around 3 p.m. but Arab governments requested a delay to explore whether they could broaden support for the measures by adopting changes suggested by some EU states.

League of Arab States permanent ambassador to the UN Yahya Mahmassani (L) talks to US deputy ambassador James Cunningham, below, before a vote during the tenth emergency special session of the UN  assembly on illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory Oct. 21, 2003, at U.N. in New York. [AP]

Arab nations had taken the resolutions to an emergency session of the 191-nation General Assembly at the urging of Palestinian U.N. envoy Nasser al-Kidwa.

Al-Kidwa made the request after the United States last week vetoed a resolution in the 15-nation Security Council that would have declared the wall to be a violation of international law that "must be ceased and reversed."

The Palestinians enjoy strong support in the assembly and the United States, Israel's closest ally, has no veto there.

Israel insists it is building the second phase of the barrier to keep militants from crossing into its territory to carry out suicide bombings.

But the Palestinians argue that building it deep into West Bank territory would constitute a land grab aimed at heading off any possibility of an eventual Palestinian state.

Israeli defense forces this month declared the lands between the wall and Israel's 1967 border with the West Bank to be militarily closed areas, which anyone other than an Israeli must have a permit to enter.

Kieran Prendergast, U.N. undersecretary-general for political affairs, said on Tuesday the declaration applied to 25,000 acres, "where as many as 12,000 Palestinians would be left in enclaves."

"This order marks an unacceptable deepening of restrictions against the Palestinians caught between the barrier and the Green Line (1967 border)," he told the Security Council.

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