Israel to Build 300 Homes in West Bank

Thursday, October 23, 2003

(3:40 PM ET)

By Josef Federman

Associated Press Writer

The construction “is a reflection that this Israeli government has chosen the path of settlements and dictation rather than peace and negotiation,” said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator. “We urge the Bush administration to stop this policy, because this is obstacle No. 1 to peace.”

Palestinian women walk next to a new section of the wall Israel is building between Israel and the Palestinian territories near the Palestinian West Bank village of Masha Thursday Oct. 23, 2003.

Image Credit: Eitan Hess-Ashkenazi -- AP

JERUSALEM -- AP
Israel disclosed plans Thursday to build nearly 300 homes in West Bank settlements, despite a freeze on construction required by a U.S.-backed peace plan. Palestinians condemned the project and urged the United States to intervene.

An associate of Yasser Arafat, meanwhile, said the Palestinian leader was unnerved by an army raid near his compound this week, and clenched a submachine gun as he declared he felt the “smell of paradise.”

Israel has said it would “remove” Arafat at an unspecified time, but has not explained whether this means expulsion or assassination. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said this week that Arafat is the major obstacle to peace, but in an earlier newspaper interview backtracked from threats to expel the Palestinian leader.

The construction of 273 apartments in West Bank settlements was disclosed Thursday by Israel's Housing Ministry, which published an ad in an Israeli newspaper inviting contractors to bid on them. The apartments are slated for Karnei Shomron, a settlement deep in the northern West Bank, and Givat Zeev, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

“The Housing Ministry builds all over Israel, including the West Bank,” said ministry spokesman Kobi Bleich. “This tender is in line with a decision taken by the government of Israel.”

The U.S.-backed “road map” plan requires a freeze on construction in the roughly 150 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians hope to establish an independent state in the two territories, which Israel captured during the 1967 Middle East war.
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2003 © The Associated Press.

Dan