The ruling was made in response to a petition by residents of the West Bank village of Shukba, near the Tel Aviv international airport. The residents are challenging the expropriation of land by the government to build the barrier, in places a high concrete wall, that Israel says is needed for security against suicide bombers.

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled in June that the barrier was legal, whether built on land inside Israel's 1967 borders or outside. But it has ordered the route of the barrier altered where it impinges too much on the lives of Palestinian villagers or expropriates land unnecessarily.

The International Court of Justice, however, ruled a few days later that the building of the barrier anywhere beyond the 1967 borders, and thus in disputed territory, was against international law.

The Israeli government said it would ignore the international court's ruling, while abiding by the Israeli court's decisions.

But the Israeli court, by its order Thursday, removes that option. ''At a certain point in time we will have to deal with the ruling of the World Court in The Hague, and the current petition is an appropriate opportunity to do so,'' said chief justice Aharon Barak.

Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said order did not compel the government to abide by the Hague ruling, but simply to assess it.

Whether the government will have to do more than that is unclear.