OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 3 March 2004 — Israel’s building of homes in Jewish settlements rose 35 percent last year despite a US-led peace plan calling for a halt to such construction on occupied Palestinian land, government figures showed yesterday. Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reported 1,850 new housing starts in settlements in the West Bank and Gaza in 2003, a trend that could complicate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s bid for US approval for his unilateral “disengagement” plan.
Hassan Abu Libdeh, spokesman for Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorie, said settlement expansion showed Israel’s lack of commitment to the US-backed “road map” and what he described as “US bias (in favor of) this Israeli government”.
The latest evidence of continued settlement expansion followed signs from Washington on Monday, after a round of US-Israeli talks, that the White House was moving toward agreeing to Sharon’s controversial plan.
The right-wing prime minister’s initiative calls for uprooting settlements in Gaza plus removing several more in the West Bank and then drawing a “security line” that would leave Palestinians with less land than they seek for a state.
The United States late last year signaled its displeasure with Israeli settlement building as well as the route of its West Bank barrier by deducting nearly $290 million from a $9 billion package of loan guarantees to the Jewish state.
Over the past year, Israel has repeatedly published building tenders for new settler homes and apartments in defiance of the Middle East “road map” — now stalled by violence — that calls for a freeze in such construction. Israel contends it has the right to build inside settlement boundaries to accommodate “natural” population growth.
More than 220,000 Israelis live in some 150 settlements among three million Palestinians. Most of the international community considers the enclaves illegal. Israel disputes this.
In another development, Israeli Army announced yesterday that it was stepping up its battle with Palestinian militants, as aides to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon struggled to persuade the US administration to back his controversial “disengagement plan”.
“In the light of the intensification of the activities of the militant organizations over the last few weeks, we will intensify our anti-terror operations,” military chief of staff Gen. Moshe Yaalon told army radio.
“In this kind of situation, attack is the best form of defense ... We will pursue the terrorists — whoever they are and wherever they are.”
The radio also reported that its senior officers had been ordered to “eliminate as many militants as possible” ahead of an expected pullout from the south and center of the Gaza Strip as part of Sharon’s plan.
Meanwhile, gunmen shot dead a veteran Palestinian journalist and prominent adviser to President Yasser Arafat in Gaza City yesterday, witnesses and medics said. Khalil Al-Zebin, 59, who ran a Palestinian Authority-funded magazine and advised Arafat on human rights and media issues, was the most prominent victim yet of a breakdown of law and order accelerated by frequent Israeli raids.
