Sharon ready to move barrier closer to Israel

? Israel will review “every kilometer” of the 310-mile stretch of West Bank barrier not yet built to check whether Palestinian rights and international law are being violated, an Israeli official said Friday.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was quoted Thursday as saying he would be prepared to move the separation barrier closer to Israel, wherever possible, to avoid trapping Palestinians in fenced-in enclaves.

The promise of a review came in response to a Supreme Court ruling earlier this week that most of a 25-mile segment of barrier near Jerusalem must be rerouted because it would cause too much hardship to Palestinians.

The barrier — a complex of fences, walls, barbed wire and trenches — eventually will cut off the entire West Bank from Israel, at a length of 425 miles. One-fourth has been built.

Palestinians contend that the barrier amounts to a land grab and Israel should have built it on its territory, not in the West Bank.

The barrier is a key element of Sharon’s plan of “unilateral disengagement” from the Palestinians, which also includes a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four small West Bank settlements by September 2005.

In new violence Friday, Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians — all unarmed, according to witnesses — in separate Gaza clashes. A fourth Palestinian, a 15-year-old boy, died of wounds suffered in an Israeli missile strike Thursday.

Also, Palestinian militants fired three homemade rockets toward the border town of Sderot. One fell in town, causing no injuries, and the other two hit open fields.

In the West Bank town of Qabatiya, Palestinian militants killed a man with a burst of automatic fire in a public square after accusing him of collaborating with Israel and sexually abusing his two daughters.

A lynch mob of about 500 people cheered on gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a group linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement. Television footage showed the man on his knees, his head bowed, before he was killed.