"After you see a suicide attack and do CPRs (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) on people in your hands, you do not see any more arguments," said Lieutenant Colonel Shai Brovender, the local brigade commander, as he led a group of journalists Thursday on a tour of the barrier in the northern West Bank.
The Israelis are not sending any legal representatives to next week's hearings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague (news - web sites), but they have not given up the battle to convince people that the project is necessary after more than 100 suicide attacks since the start of the intifada in September 2000.
Since the completion of the first first 80-mile (130-kilometre) section of the barrier between Salem and Elkana in the northern West Bank last July, the Israelis say just one attack inside the Jewish state has been launched from the area.
Arguably the most controversial stretch built so far is around the town of Qalqilya whose 70,000 residents are literally walled in on three sides by eight-meter (25 foot) slabs of concrete.
While acknowledging that the barrier has led to a degree of disruption for the Palestinians, the Israelis say that is a small price given the absense of attacks emanating from an area from where five suicide attacks have been launched.
The Palestinians will argue at The Hague that the Israelis are in breach of international law by building parts of the barrier on their side of the Green Line, the 1949 armistice line drawn up after the first Arab-Israeli war.
In a rare departure from its traditional neutrality, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday that the barrier "in as far as its route deviates from the 'Green Line' into occupied territory, is contrary to IHL (international humanitarian law)."
But Brovender argued that the army had no option but to appropriate some land in order to have a buffer zone between Israeli towns and settlements.
"The fence was built in places to protect Israeli civilians," he said.
"If we had it on the Green Line we would not have time to catch the terrorists."
The Israelis say that they open gates to allow Palestinian farmers to access their fields and youngsters to get to schools left on the other side of the barrier, but many West Bank villagers have experienced lengthy delays or no-shows by the army.
Qalqilya resident Intissar Salameh said that the tortuous route of the barrier means that what was a 40-minute journey to the nearby town of Nablus has now become a three-hour marathon.
"The wall limits the movement of all of us. It has killed commercial life in the town and for the people who want to go to university in other parts of the West Bank," said the young mother stopping at a junction just outside town.
From a hilltop overlooking the walls of Qalqilya, army spokeswoman Sharon Feingold said the concrete structure was needed to protect motorists driving along Route 6, the main north-south highway in Israel.
"If those cars could drive safely, there would be no need for a wall," she said.
But despite the fierce belief in the need for the barrier, officers said they were well aware that it had adversely impacted the lives of Palestinians/
"We are both learning the effects of the fence," said Brovender.
"The fence was built very rapidly to avoid terror. We made several mistakes and we are correcting them."
One senior officer acknoweledged the upset among Palestinians.
"This ugly war which was pushed on us has brought misery to everybody," he said, on condition of anonymity.
