Israel plans expansion of West Bank settlements

Israel is considering building thousands more homes in West Bank settlements, in line with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to keep large chunks of the territory while giving up the Gaza Strip, security officials said today.

In a possible boost for Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal plan, Israel’s attorney general was expected to announce today that he is closing a corruption investigation against the prime minister, officials close to the case said.

The opposition Labour Party, which supports a Gaza pullback, has said it would only consider joining Sharon’s coalition if he is cleared of corruption.

The attorney general was to make an announcement in the case at 3pm today.

Sharon needs Labour to restore his parliamentary majority. Several coalition hard-liners defected over the Gaza plan, leaving him with a minority government.

In the meantime, Labour has prevented Sharon’s government from being toppled, by abstaining in no confidence votes in parliament.

However, Labour leader Shimon Peres warned that his party should not be taken for granted. “We’re not in anyone’s pocket,” Peres said.

Media reports said a decision to join the coalition could split Labour, and that only about 15 of the party’s 19 MPs would follow Peres into the government.

Sharon’s plan of “unilateral disengagement” calls for a withdrawal from all of Gaza and four West Bank settlements by September 2005.

He has said that in exchange, he wants to keep and expand several large settlement blocs in the West Bank – a demand that has won the tacit support of President George Bush.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has asked the military to draw up plans within three months for building thousands of homes in three of the settlement blocs - Gush Etzion, Maale Adumim and Ariel.

Defence officials said Mofaz met settler leaders in Gush Etzion yesterday, and told them he would consider their request to build thousands more homes there.

Newspaper Maariv said additional construction is also expected in Maale Adumim and Ariel, the two largest West Bank settlements.

Shaul Goldstein, the head of the Yesha Council, the settlers’ umbrella group, asked Mofaz for approval of 5,300 new houses in Gush Etzion, which is south of Jerusalem. Goldstein also asked that Gush Etzion be expanded by 2,500 acres to allow for the eventual construction of 7,500 more homes there, Maariv said.

Sharon has said he plans to expand settlement blocs Israel intends to keep under a future peace deal.

The Palestinians want all of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War, for their future state. They have been deeply suspicious of the Gaza plan because of the implied trade-off – Israel giving up Gaza to strengthen its hold on parts of the West Bank.

It was not clear whether Gaza settlers would be moved to the West Bank. Sharon has considered such an option, but it was vetoed by the Bush administration.

“We call on the American administration for direct and immediate intervention to revoke and stop all these plans,” said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat.

In new violence today, a Palestinian vehicle apparently rigged with explosives blew up in the Gaza Strip after Israeli soldiers fired on it. No one was hurt, the army and Palestinian witnesses said.

On Monday evening, two Palestinian militants were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Balata refugee camp, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus.

The targeted attack killed Khalil Marshoud, local leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a violent offshoot of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement. The military said Marshoud was behind a number of attacks against Israelis.

Another Palestinian militant was killed and a third person was seriously wounded, witnesses said.