GAZA CITY, 3 August 2004 — Israel has approved 600 new houses for the West Bank’s biggest Jewish settlement in breach of an understanding with Washington not to expand enclaves on occupied land.

But no building tenders have been published since the decision two months ago and Israeli security sources said the United States would be consulted before construction began.

The plan would add homes to Maale Adumim, a sprawling, suburban-style settlement with 30,000 people. Located a few km east of Jerusalem, it straddles the mid-section of territory that Palestinians seek for a viable independent state.

Political sources conceded the plan would breach an understanding with the United States not to erect more homes beyond existing built-up zones in West Bank settlements.

Palestinian officials condemned the move as a violation of the US-backed road map which mandates a freeze on settlement expansion to help make way for Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“This is in total defiance of the road map... and total defiance of (US) President (George W.) Bush’s vision. Settlements and peace do not go together,” Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat said.

“We will discuss this new neighborhood with the Americans,” said an Israeli security official of the decision, acknowledged by a Defense Ministry spokesman without further comment.

In April, Bush assured Sharon that Israel could retain some West Bank land under any future peace deal with Palestinians if the Israeli premier carries out his unilateral plan to withdraw from Gaza next year.

Sharon’s blueprint to “disengage” from a bloody stalemate with Palestinians would evacuate all 8,000 Jews from Gaza, along with four of 120 settlements in the West Bank.

But “disengagement” also entails keeping some West Bank settlement blocs, including Maale Adumim, with the bulk of the 240,000 Jews on land Israel took in the 1967 Middle East war.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians killed three collaborators. A guard threw a grenade into a cell holding Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel, killing one and injuring six. Gunmen twice broke into Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, where the six were taken, and killed two of them.

The dead were identified as Mahmoud Al-Sharef, 52, and Walid Hamdiyeh, 42. They were killed in similar attacks a few hours apart. Gunmen pulled up to the hospital in several vehicles. While some closed the street, others raced into the hospital and gunned down the convicted collaborators.

Hamdiyeh confessed during a 2002 trial to providing Israel with information that helped its forces kill Imad Akel, a founder of the Hamas military wing, in 1993. Al-Sharef was convicted in 1999 of being involved in the killing of Mahmoud Al-Khawja, the founder of Islamic Jihad’s military wing, four years earlier.

The man killed in the grenade attack was not identified.

— Additional input from agencies