Israel 'will invest millions in West Bank'

Israel will invest hundreds of millions of pounds in West Bank settlements even as it pulls out of the Gaza Strip and a few other settlements, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has proposed removing all settlements in Gaza, as well as four in the West Bank, and rapidly completing a separation barrier Israel is building in the West Bank.

Palestinians fear the move will strengthen Israel’s hold over the rest of the West Bank, which they want as part of a future state.

Netanyahu announced his support for Sharon’s plan, giving it a crucial boost in an upcoming referendum among the 200,000 members of Sharon’s hardline Likud party.

Netanyahu told Israel Radio today that he decided to support the plan after US President George Bush announced that Israel would not have to absorb Palestinian refugees or evacuate major Israeli population centres in the West Bank in any peace deal.

Netanyahu said he was also satisfied with Sharon’s commitment to finish the barrier, which snakes into the West Bank in parts to include some settlements, before the withdrawal begins.

Netanyahu reaffirmed Israel’s commitment to the settlements that will fall on the “Palestinian” side of the barrier.

“There we are going to invest. I myself am going to approve hundreds of millions of shekels to invest in the settlements beyond the main fence,” he said.

Netanyahu’s plan would contradict the US-backed “road map” peace plan which requires Israel to freeze settlement construction.

Sharon told the Cabinet yesterday that he would forge ahead with his disengagement plan, while continuing to “hit the terror organisations and their leaders”.

As part of that campaign, Israel killed Hamas’s Gaza leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, on Saturday.

The Islamic militant group threatened “100 unique reprisals” for the killing as hundreds of thousands of mourners flooded the streets of Gaza in a show of strength and fury.

Hamas chose a replacement for Rantisi on Sunday, but did not disclose his name - a sign that Israel’s campaign against the Hamas leadership has put it on the defensive.

Israel killed Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin last month.

Hamas’s ability to retaliate remained unclear. It has still not managed to carry out a large-scale attack in the wake of Yassin’s killing.

The killing of Rantisi set off demonstrations – some of them violent – across Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Arab countries.

Early today, an Israeli was slightly injured when Palestinian militants fired two Qassam rockets at the Jewish settlement of Nisanit in the northern Gaza Strip, the army said. Five rockets, mortar shells and anti-tank missiles were fired at Gaza settlements overnight but only the Nisanit attack caused a casualty, the army said.