Israel Plans 100 Houses in West Bank Settlements

Israel's housing ministry announced plans today to build 100 new homes in two settlements in the occupied West Bank, drawing swift criticism from Palestinian officials.

In an advertisement in the Ha'aretz newspaper, the ministry invited construction companies to bid for the rights to build 48 homes in Ariel, a major settlement, and 52 homes in a smaller settlement called Elkana.

It was the first time since peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians began last November that the Israeli government had announced construction in settlements so deep inside the West Bank.

The talks are based on the US road map to peace, which requires Israel to freeze all settlement activity and to withdraw from some of its furthest outposts in the West Bank.

However, in a wide-ranging interview with an Israeli newspaper today, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, repeated his plans to continue construction within the major settlement blocs, despite the on-going talks.

Previous construction tenders have been issued for homes in settlements in east Jerusalem since the peace talks started.

More than 400,000 people live in Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, which most of the international community regards as illegal.

"We condemn these plans and resolutions, which really undermine the peace process," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. He said the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, would raise the settlement expansion in talks with the US president, George Bush, in Washington next week.

In an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Olmert insisted the peace talks were "serious negotiations" but he also defended the construction plans.

"It was clear from day one, both to Abu Mazen and to Bush and Rice, that in the population centers, the areas mentioned by Bush in his letter from April 2004, construction would continue," Olmert told the paper. "I didn't do this because someone applied pressure. I say today too: Beitar will be built, the Etzion bloc will be built, they will build in Pisgat Ze'ev and in the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem. It is completely clear that in any future arrangement, these areas will remain in Israel's hands."

Beitar Illit and the Etzion bloc are major settlements south of Jerusalem and Pisgat Ze'ev is a settlement in north-east Jerusalem. The letter written by Bush to Israel's then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has proved controversial because in it the US president suggested that in a future agreement Israel could hold onto some unnamed major settlements in the West Bank even though this is bitterly disputed by the Palestinians.