- Israel announced it would seek tender offers to build
700 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, drawing a
rapid rebuke from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
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- The announcement, which came shortly after the end of
Rice's first visit to Israel and the West Bank as Washington's top diplomat,
incited fury from the Palestinians who accused Israel of trying to change
the face of Jerusalem.
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- "At the end of the year we are going to put to tender
contracts to build 300 homes in the settlement of Maale Adumim and 400
homes in Beitar Eilit," a spokesman for Israel's housing ministry
told AFP.
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- Housing "Minister Yitzhak Herzog has approved the
construction because there is a consensus in Israel to hold on to these
two settlements in the future," said spokesman Kobi Bleich.
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- Both sprawling settlements are located around annexed
east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of their
promised state. Israel considers the whole of Jerusalem the undivided capital
of the Jewish state.
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- Arriving in Jordan on the third leg of her Middle East
swing, Rice betrayed her irritation over the settlements as well as the
West Bank security barrier which Israel is erecting to the anger of the
Palestinians.
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- "I discussed both the issue of the settlements and
the wall with the prime minister, with the foreign minister and with anybody
else who would listen," she told a news conference.
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- "The fact is that the United States has a very clear
policy on this and we don't expect to see any activity from the Israelis
that try and prejudge a final status agreement."
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- A spokeswoman for Herzog, who belongs to the centre-left
Labour party that joined the government primarily to shore up this summer's
Gaza pullout, quickly sought to minimise any direct responsibility for
the prospective expansions.
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- "The construction plans date back a long time, well
before the minister took office, and in the six months he has been on the
job, he has not signed a single tender," Pina Ben Ami told AFP.
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- But the Palestinian cabinet minister responsible for
Jerusalem accused Israel of brazenly ignoring US criticism over settlement
expansion to raze Palestinian homes in the city.
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- "These new construction plans come in defiance of
statements from President (George W.) Bush and Condoleezza Rice,"
Hind Khuri told AFP.
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- She said the projects worked for the "systematic
destruction of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem," on the pretext
of being built without permit.
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- "The aim is to create new fait accomplis to change
the face of Jerusalem," she charged.
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- The United States maintains that final negotiations on
a Palestinian state, as provided in the roadmap, would have to take into
account "certain realities" since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war,
which Rice says must be "mutually agreed".
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- A residential suburb of occupied eastJerusalem, Maale
Adumim is the most populous Jewish settlement in the West Bank with 28,000
settlers.
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- The 25,000-strong Beitar Eilit is a Jewish Orthodox community
a stone's throw from the Israeli border and part of the Gush Etzion settlement
bloc.
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- It emerged earlier this year that Defence Minister Shaul
Mofaz had approved the construction of more than 3,500 new homes in Maale
Adumim.
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- Israeli authorities are preparing to revive plans to
link Maale Adumim to Jewish settlements in Arab east Jerusalem as the government
presses ahead with plans to evacuate all Israeli settlers and troops from
Gaza by October.
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