Newsday.com - AP World News

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah said an international court ruling would do nothing to remove Israel's barrier through the West Bank, and he predicted the United States would block any U.N. Security Council effort to enforce the measure.

"Americans will be waiting there with a ready veto," Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said at a Friday dinner for Hezbollah-supported winners of municipal elections.

In a sharply worded but nonbinding ruling on Friday, the court said Israel should dismantle the barrier, compensate Palestinians who suffered economic losses because of it and return property confiscated for its construction.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud praised the ruling on Saturday and called on the United Nations to "take its historic responsibility by rejecting the illegitimacy of the barrier and working to achieve peace and stability in the region."

The court also called for a negotiated peace settlement that would see the establishment of a Palestinian state "as soon as possible."

Israel has insisted it won't change its policy.

"What will remove the barrier in occupied Palestine is the intention, will, jihad and resistance of Palestinians and the (Arab) nation," Nasrallah said.

He pointed to U.N. Security Council Resolution 425, issued in 1978, that called for Israel's immediate withdrawal from Lebanon after it invaded. Israel did not pull out until 2000, following years of guerrilla attacks spearheaded by Hezbollah.

"This international resolution was not able to return for us one inch of our occupied lands," Nasrallah said. "Arabs might be happy for hours or days because of the international court's ruling, but everybody knows that this ruling is nonbinding."

But two radical Palestinian groups hailed the ruling as a victory for their people.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine described it as "a historical decision and a big legal international triumph for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their struggle against the barrier."

Ziyad Nakhaleh, a member of the militant Islamic Jihad's politburo, said the decision came at the right time "to demonstrate the injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people and the hostility of the Zionist entity."

In Kuwait, political analyst Ayed al-Manna said that the U.N. General Assembly must now take action.

"If the assembly adopts it, it will no doubt be a moral gain, it will annoy Israelis and it could be used to press for a peaceful solution," he said. "Israel will not comply, and that is why (international) pressure is important."

The court's ruling by 15 international judges cannot be imposed on Israel, but the Palestinians and the Arab League said they would seek action at the United Nations' General Assembly to force Israel to comply. General Assembly decisions, unlike the Security Council's, are not legally binding.

The court on Friday described the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories, and Israeli settlements in these areas as a violation of the Geneva conventions. The land was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.