Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

One of the residents, Mohammed Hamamdi, told Israel Radio he wouldn't waste a minute.

"I am going straight away to pack my bags and return to the cave. Tonight I will make a party there. Whatever they end up deciding, I will never leave my cave again, even if I have to die," Hamamdi said.

The legal fight to return the Palestinians to their alleged homes was backed by a public campaign led by author David Grossman and other public figures, who published ads in the papers and appeared on radio and television to press their case.

Grossman regards the decision as "the correction of an evil which has gone on for four months. The mistreatment of these people began a long time before that, but not in the brutal manner that it has been perpetrated since November 1999. I feel a great relief."

At the opening of the hourlong hearing, Supreme Court President Aharon Barak proposed appointing an investigator to examine the claims of each of the Palestinians, who maintain the caves are their homes. In the meantime, he said, they would be allowed to return to them.

The Israel Defense Force declared the area a restricted military zone many years ago and imposed restrictions on the residents' movement. In November, it issued an expulsion order and evicted all of them, claiming they used the caves seasonally but had homes in nearby villages outside the firing zone.

The court set an investigation deadline of two months from the time the investigator is appointed.

The investigator will determine which of the Palestinians actually lived in the caves permanently and which used them seasonally. Those who use the caves seasonally will have to leave. The army will have the opportunity to propose alternative solutions to the permanent cave-dwellers.

If the petitioners are not satisfied with the decisions of the investigator or the proposals of the army, they will be entitled to return to the court to argue their case, Barak ruled.

ACRI attorney Netta Amar said she is satisfied with the decision. Once the cave-dwellers are back, she added, it will not be easy for the state to expel them again.