Angry Palestinians warn peace is at risk over new Jerusalem plan

ISRAEL plans to build 3,500 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to cement its hold on Jerusalem, government sources said yesterday, drawing Palestinian warnings that peace efforts were at risk.

The blueprint for construction between the Maaleh Adumim settlement and Arab East Jerusalem clashed with a US-backed peace “road map”, despite hopes for a breakthrough buoyed by a truce Israel and the Palestinian Authority declared last month.

The road map requires a halt to settlement expansion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and sought by Palestinians for a future state. But US President George W Bush said in 2004 that Israel, which intends to quit occupied Gaza this summer, could expect to keep some West Bank settlement blocs under a final peace accord.