- JERUSALEM -- 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 but
give up the Gaza Strip, security officials said Tuesday.
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- In a possible boost for Mr. Sharon's Gaza withdrawal
plan, Israel's Attorney-General was expected to announce later Tuesday
that he is closing a corruption investigation against the Prime Minister,
officials close to the case said.
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- The opposition Labour Party, which supports a Gaza pullback,
has said it would consider joining Mr. Sharon's coalition only if he were
cleared of corruption suspicions.
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- Mr. Sharon needs Labour to restore his parliamentary
majority. Several coalition hardliners defected over the Gaza plan, leaving
him with a minority government.
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- In the meantime, Labour has prevented Mr. Sharon's government
from being toppled, by abstaining in no confidence votes in parliament.
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- Labour Leader Shimon Peres, however, warned that his
party should not be taken for granted. ìWe're not in anyone's pocket,î
Mr. Peres told Israel Army Radio.
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- Media reports said that a decision to join the coalition
could split Labour and that only about 15 of the party's 19 legislators
would follow Mr. Peres into the government.
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- Mr. Sharon's plan of ìunilateral disengagementî
calls for a withdrawal from all of Gaza and four West Bank settlements
by September, 2005. Mr. Sharon has said that in exchange, he wants to keep
and expand several large settlement blocs in the West Bank ó a demand
that has won the tacit support of U.S. President George W. Bush.
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- The Israeli daily Maariv reported Tuesday that 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
ó Gush Etzion, Maale Adumim and Ariel.
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- The Defence Ministry would not comment.
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- Security officials, insisting on anonymity, said Mr.
Mofaz met Monday with settler leaders in Gush Etzion, and told them he
would consider their request to build thousands more homes there. Maariv
said additional construction is also expected in Maale Adumim and Ariel,
the two largest West Bank settlements.
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- The newspaper said Mr. Mofaz told the head of the so-called
Civil Administration, the Israeli military government in the West Bank,
to accelerate authorization for a number of construction projects in Gush
Etzion.
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- Shaul Goldstein, the deputy head of the Yesha Council,
the settlers' umbrella group, said he spoke to Mr. Mofaz about the need
to update building plans for settlements.
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- Mr. Goldstein denied, however, a Maariv report that he
asked for approval of 5,300 new homes for Gush Etzion. He told Associated
Press that no specifics were discussed at the meeting.
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- Mr. Sharon has said he plans to expand settlement blocs
that Israel intends to keep under a future peace deal.
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- 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 tradeoff ó Israel giving up Gaza to strengthen its
hold on parts of the West Bank.
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- It was not clear whether Gaza settlers would be moved
to the West Bank. Mr. Sharon has considered such an option, but it was
condemned by the U.S. administration.
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- ìWe call on the American administration for direct
and immediate intervention to revoke and stop all these plans,î Palestinian
cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said.
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- In new violence Tuesday, 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.
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- 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.
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- The assassination killed Khalil Marshoud, local leader
of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent splinter group of Yasser Arafat's
Fatah movement. The military said Mr. Marshoud was behind a number of attacks
against Israelis.
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- Another Palestinian militant was killed and a third person
was seriously wounded, witnesses said.
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- Israel killed two other al-Aqsa leaders in a missile
attack in Nablus on May 2.
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- In Bethlehem, the army demolished the family home of
a fugitive activist of the Islamic Jihad movement, the military and the
man's relatives said.
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