Olmert orders Jerusalem barrier completed by 2010

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel must complete its Jerusalem barrier by 2010, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday, signalling plans to press ahead with a project that Palestinians condemn as a major obstacle to any peace accord.

Of the 790-km-long (490-mile) network of fences and walls Israel is building in and along the occupied West Bank, a fifth runs around Jerusalem, including key eastern parts of the holy city where Palestinians want a capital for future statehood.

Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem, along with the West Bank, from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war. It calls the entire city its capital, a claim not recognised internationally. Israel says the barrier prevents Palestinian suicide bombings which in the past killed hundreds of its citizens.

"The fence in the Greater Jerusalem area must be completed by the end of 2009. This is vital to Israel's security," Olmert told Defence Ministry representatives on a tour of construction sites on Tuesday, according to a statement issued by his office.

More than two-thirds of the Jerusalem barrier is finished, the statement said. Of the outstanding sections, 4.5 kms (1 mile) have been held up by legal challenges, filed for Palestinian residents who fear losing access to farmland or city services.

The World Court in 2004 branded the barrier, which Palestinians consider a land grab, as illegal. The United States, patron of peace talks between Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has called the project "unhelpful".

Israel says that the project could be rerouted if there is peace. But Israel also says it will keep all of Jerusalem, along with Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank, under any accord.

Olmert's term will end after a Feb. 10 ballot. Neither of the leading candidates to replace him -- centrist Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and rightist opposition chief Benjamin Netanyahu -- has shown a desire to shift policy on the barrier.