Israel relaunches plan for West Bank settlement in snub to US

Israel has has taken a decisive first step towards reviving a controversial plan for a Jewish settlement in the West Bank which it was forced to withdraw two years ago under pressure from the US.

The military's civil administration has announced plans to go ahead with the construction of at least 20 homes in the Jordan Valley for settlers evacuated from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

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Peace Now, which campaigns against settlement, believes the move is part of a larger plan which could mean the establishment of about 100 homes in Maskiot, in the Jordan Valley.

The plan, initially approved by the then Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, in 2006, ended up being shelved after a vigorous protest by the US State Department. The US made no immediate comment on the revival of the plan as Palestinian and Israeli negotiators struggle to fulfil George Bush's aspiration of an outline agreement on a two-state solution by the end of the year.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator who was one of the group that met Barack Obama in Ramallah on Wednesday, said: "We condemn this Israeli decision in the strongest possible terms. This is undermining us and killing and destroying the peace process."

Government sources suggested the Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, had not yet given his final approval, and Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said no plans had been submitted to his office. He said that Israel would honour its commitment "not to build new settlements, nor to outwardly expand existing ones".

Despite frequent protests by the international community, Israel continues to authorise the construction of hundreds of homes in settlements in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank close to the 1967 border, which Israel is determined to keep within its boundaries.

Whether Maskiot is a "new" settlement of the sort Mr Olmert has repeatedly ruled out is the subject of a legal dispute between the government and anti-settlement campaigners.

If the development goes ahead, the government is expected to argue that it is not "new" because a military outpost was established there in 1982. But Hagit Ofran, of Peace Now, said the designation of Maskiot as a settlement – where a small yeshiva, or religious college, was established in 2002 – did not conform with a 1992 cabinet decision requiring new formal authorisation of any civilian settlements.

The homes are being sought by former residents of the coastal Gaza settlement of Shirat Hayam. "They want to establish a new settlement and that's what it will be," said Ms Ofran.

In any case, in its statement of 24 June, the international "Quartet" of the US, the EU, the UN and Russia called on Israel to "freeze all settlement activity including natural growth, and to dismantle outposts erected since March 2001".

And the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has said that such settlement activity has the potential to "harm the negotiations".

Israel Radio suggested yesterday that Mr Barak's potential endorsement of Maskiot was part of a negotiation with settlers' leaders aimed at reaching agreement on the voluntary evacuation of outposts which are illegal under Israeli as well as international law.

Palestinian security officials have reported that more than 20 Jewish settlers had run riot through the Palestinian village of Burin in the West Bank, as they protested at the dismantling by Israeli security forces of a bus being used illegally by them as a mobile home.

The closest Jewish settlement to the village is the notably hardline Yitzhar, where a settler was arrested this month for allegedly trying to launch a homemade rocket, also at Burin.