Israel Plans New W.Bank Settlement After Gaza Exit

Gvaot, planned as an extension to the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, appeared to fall within the cracks of a U.S.-led "road map" peace plan whose final vision is hotly disputed as Israel and the Palestinians try to stabilize a tentative cease-fire.

The road map requires a halt to settlement-building on land Israel captured in 1967 and where Palestinians want statehood. But President Bush said in 2004 that Israel could expect to keep some of the West Bank land under an accord.

Disclosing the Gvaot project, Housing Minister Isaac Herzog said Jewish settlers slated for evacuation from Gaza this year would be encouraged to relocate to sparsely populated areas of Israel, but could also go to the West Bank if they chose.

"I cannot prevent an individual who wants to use his compensation to buy a house in Gush Etzion from doing so," he told Reuters. "This would be totally within his rights."

But he stressed the settlement plan had been on the books for a decade and no decision had been made to actually start building. "I will review the idea and of course bear in mind the political ramifications and necessity," he said.

He was alluding to wariness about possible U.S. opposition.

A U.S. official suggested that if the plan were implemented, it would damage efforts to revive the road map spurred by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Jan. 9 election on a platform to stop fighting and start negotiating for statehood.

"We are concerned about any building of new or additional settlements in the West Bank, because the road map calls for a cessation of settlement activity, and we will be looking into this," he told Reuters.

LEAVING GAZA, STAYING IN WEST BANK

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon aims to remove 8,500 settlers from Gaza under his plan to "disengage" from conflict with Palestinians, while cementing Israel's hold on swathes of the larger West Bank where 230,000 settlers live.

Gush Etzion, about 20 km (12 miles) south of Jerusalem, has about 15,000 settlers alone and is among several sprawling enclaves Sharon regards as strategic assets not to be ceded.

Palestinian officials, engaged in security coordination talks with Israel since Abbas and Sharon declared a cease-fire at a Feb. 8 summit in Egypt, cried foul over the settlement plan.

"Israel is throwing sand in our eyes by continuing with the settlement process (in the West Bank)," Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie told Reuters before a cabinet meeting.

Israel has been expanding larger West Bank settlements for years and Palestinians fear this could dash their hope for a viable state envisioned by the road map.

Sharon has faced strong opposition from right-wing Israelis to abandoning territory they regard as a biblical birthright -- including within his government -- although polls show most of the Jewish state's citizens favor a pullout from tiny Gaza.

Senior political sources said that Sharon hoped to win a key cabinet vote on the Gaza plan this Sunday by also presenting for approval a resolution to extend Israel's controversial West Bank barrier to encompass Gush Etzion.

Israel calls the network of fences and walls, a third of whose planned 730-km (440-mile) length has been built, a bulwark against suicide bombers who have killed hundreds of its citizens. Palestinians call it a disguised bid to annex land.

"The prime minister long put off discussing this (Gush Etzion) section of the fence, concerned it would draw international censure," an Israeli political source said. "Now he hopes to mollify the cabinet rebels, by letting them vote for the fence section with the knowledge that he expects them also to approve the Gaza plan."

As part of a series of goodwill gestures agreed on at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, Israel is to begin handing over control of West Bank cities to the Palestinian Authority and release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners this month.

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