Israel unveils plan for 600 settler homes

JERUSALEM - Israel has unveiled plans 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.

Israel says the barrier will act as a bulwark against suicide bombers. Palestinians call it a unilateral "land grab" intended to cement Jewish settlements in 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 US-backed roadmap 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, 530 in Beitar Illit and 24 more in Ariel near the West Bank city of Nablus - was in accordance with Government policy.

US 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 roadmap has been fully assassinated by an Israeli policy of settlement expansion".

Palestinians were already angry at the Israeli Government's endorsement on Thursday of plans for the next phase in a 350km 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 said at his headquarters in 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 US President George W. 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.

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.

In Ramallah, Palestinian sources said Prime Minister-designate Ahmed Qurie would seek Parliament's approval of his Cabinet next week, delaying the vote until after the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, which would restrict Palestinian travel.

The new Cabinet will include an interior minister with wider powers and three deputies, a sign Arafat is attempting to silence internal strife and international censure by ceding some power, Palestinian sources said.

In Gaza, Israeli troops shot and killed a 63-year-old Palestinian chatting outside his home with friends when they fired into Rafah refugee camp, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.

Israeli military sources reported incidents in which soldiers exchanged fire with Palestinian gunmen in the area but could not confirm the death.

- REUTERS