"The wall being built on the West Bank is not about security, it's about entrenching the occupation and the de facto annexation of large areas of the Palestinian land," Nasser al-Qidwa told the UN's International Court of Justice on Monday.
"This wall if completed will leave the Palestinian people with only half of the West Bank within isolated, non-contiguous walled enclaves."
Qidwa, the Palestinians' permanent representative at the United Nations (news - web sites), said that the construction was destroying the internationally-backed roadmap peace plan which aims for the creation of an independent Palestinian by next year.
"It will render the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict practically impossible," he said.
"Saving the roadmap and the prospects for peace requires a cessation of the construction of this wall, its removal and non-recognition by states of any of its consequences."
Israel has insisted that what it terms the security barrier is essential to bring a halt to the wave of Palestinian suicide attacks which have killed hundreds of Israelis since the start of the intifada, or uprising, in September 2000.
Eight passengers were killed in the latest such attack on a bus in Jerusalem on Sunday, leading Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom to argue that the barrier was "indispensable".
The government of right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) has boycotted the hearings, arguing that the case is beyond the competence of the court.
It filed written submissions to the court in The Hague (news - web sites) late last month.
Qidwa said that the Palestinians "unequivocally" condemned suicide bombings but said the barrier was likely to increase the prospect of such attacks.
"It is more than obvious that when you deprive an entire people of their rights, expropriate their land and property and wall them into enclaves and ghettos you are not solving the security problem but creating an untenable situation that will combust."
Pro-Israeli groups were staging protests outside the court, filing past the wreckage of a bus which was blown apart in a recent suicide attack.
As the hearings began in The Hague, veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) said that the barrier was designed to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.
He called on Palestinians in a televised speech to "let their voices be heard" against the barrier.
"This apartheid wall ... aims to deprive our people of their land and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, in conformity with international resolutions," Arafat said.
But he added: "The ICJ has the opportunity today to anchor the legal basis of international legitimacy, to give hope for peace and for the building of bridges of cooperation and friendship instead of the wall of annexation, expansion and apartheid."
The hearings are expected to last until Wednesday. No date has been set for any judgment which will be non-binding.
