- JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel
unveiled plans on Thursday to build more than 600 new homes in Jewish settlements,
drawing fresh international and Palestinian condemnation a day after it
approved expanding its West Bank separation barrier.
-
- Both moves seek to solidify Israel's hold on parts of
the West Bank, which the Palestinians want for an independent state.
-
- The government published building tenders for three West
Bank settlements in defiance of a U.S.-backed "road map" peace
plan that calls for a halt to settlement construction.
-
- Housing Ministry spokesman Koby Bleich said the plan
for 604 new units near Jerusalem -- 50 in Maale Adumim and 530 in Beitar
Illit -- and 24 more in Ariel near the West Bank city of Nablus was in
accordance with government policy.
-
- Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington had "concerns"
about the announced construction plans. The international community views
all Jewish settlements on occupied territory as illegal. Israel disputes
this.
-
- Palestinian cabinet member Yasser Abed Rabbo called the
new construction "evidence that the road map has been fully assassinated
by an Israeli policy of settlement expansion."
-
- Palestinian anger had already been stoked by the Israeli
government's endorsement Wednesday of plans for the next phase in a 350-km
(210-mile) network of electronic fences and concrete walls that cuts deep
into the West Bank.
-
- "Israel is pursuing its crimes by expanding this
racist and Nazi wall that expropriates our land," Palestinian President
Yasser Arafat told reporters at his headquarters in the West Bank city
of Ramallah.
-
- He accused Israel of "sabotaging and destroying
the peace process" and appealed to the "Quartet" of Middle
East peacemakers -- the United States, Russia, European Union and United
Nations -- to stop the project.
-
- Powell said that President Bush "continues to believe
that the fence presents a problem" and in Warsaw European Union foreign
policy chief Javier Solana deplored the barrier plan.
-
- "I do not think we can accept a wall that creates
decisions on the ground about land that...has not been divided," he
said.
-
- Israel says the fence is necessary to seal out suicide
bombers and protect settlements and denies international suggestions that
it is creating a de facto border prejudging the outcome of future negotiations.
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- PALESTINIANS ALARMED, SETTLERS NOT COMFORTED
-
- Palestinians were alarmed at Israel's estimate that new
sections of the barrier would leave some 60,000 inhabitants on the Israeli
side, making it difficult for them to reach other parts of the West Bank.
-
- Jewish settlers also found no comfort in the barrier.
"If the fence goes up, the Palestinians gain from it. The Israeli
people have more to lose," said Evita Mazouz, resident of the Psagot
settlement overlooking Ramallah.
-
- About 230,000 Jews live in 150 heavily guarded settlements
scattered among 3.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war.
-
- Early Thursday, Israeli soldiers found a car packed with
explosives near the West Bank of Nablus and detonated it in a controlled
blast, military sources said.
-
- In Ramallah, Palestinian sources said Prime Minister-designate
Ahmed Qurie would seek parliament's approval of his cabinet Tuesday or
Wednesday, delaying the vote until after the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur
which would restrict Palestinian travel.
-
- And in a move that appeared directed at appeasing international
censure and internal strife, Arafat agreed to grant the incoming interior
minister wider powers over security forces, top Palestinian negotiator
Saeb Erekat said. (Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem,
Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah and Katarzyna Mala in Warsaw)
-
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-
-
- Comment
- Frances - Canada
- 10-2-3
-
- I thought this was illegal and qualified as a war crimes
act under a new
- resolution passed last year July 1st at the UN!?! So,
WHY isn't Israel's
- leadership being hunted and held for war crimes then?
|
