The Israeli government announced yesterday that it planned to build some 700 housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The move threatens to complicate renewed efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian security co-operation and get the warring parties back to the negotiating table.
The Housing Minister, Mr Natan Sharansky, said the tenders published by his Ministry - for 500 units at the settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim near Jerusalem and 200 at Alfei Menashe near the West Bank city of Qalqilyah - were intended to "strengthen the [Jewish] settlers" in the wake of Palestinian attacks on settlements in recent days.
Mr Sharansky said the tenders were "in accordance with the decisions of the government of Israel". The guidelines of the Likud-Labour national unity government, headed by the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, stipulate that no new settlements can be built, but they do permit the expansion of existing settlements to meet natural growth.
The chief Palestinian negotiator, Mr Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Maazen) made it clear on Wednesday, after the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, met the Palestinian Ministers, Mr Nabil Sha'ath and Mr Saeb Erekat in Athens in an effort to extinguish the violence, that settlements were an obstacle to ending hostilities and resuming negotiations. For the Palestinians, the settlements present the major impediment to the creation of a viable Palestinian state, threatening to reduce it to a series of dislocated "bantustans".
The United States, which has been particularly critical of the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, in recent weeks, sided with the Palestinians yesterday, saying the settlement move was provocative.
Meanwhile, the bloodshed continued yesterday in the territories, with the Palestinians accusing Israel of assassinating an activist of the fundamentalist Islamic Jihad movement. Mr Iyad Hardan (30) was killed when an explosive device was detonated in a public telephone booth he was using in the northern West Bank city of Jenin. While Israel did not admit responsibility for the killing, it has accused Mr Hardan of sending suicide bombers to Jerusalem and of being behind numerous attacks in the West Bank.
Another Palestinian teenager was shot dead yesterday by Israeli troops in clashes at a junction near the isolated settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian officials said a further 10 people were injured.
Early today, Israeli helicopters bombarded Palestinian positions around the town of Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip. Offices of the Palestinian authority were damaged.