Aerial photographs by Israel’s defence ministry have provided fresh evidence that the government is continuing its rapid expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank despite public statements to the contrary.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Sunday reported that the pictures, taken last summer and again this year, show extensive construction on settlements, confirming Palestinian fears that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is using the upheaval around the removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza strip as cover to grab control of more of the West Bank.
The continued construction is also in breach of Israel’s commitments under the United States-led road map peace initiative, which requires a complete freeze on settlement expansion.
A Palestinian Cabinet minister, Saeb Erekat, said the continued expansion of the settlements and outposts jeopardises the Palestinian leadership’s attempts to curb violence and negotiate a peace agreement.
”Any settlement continuation at a faster pace puts our effort to revive the peace process into danger,” he said. ”Everywhere we go in the West Bank we see settlement construction that undermines all the efforts being exerted to revive hope in the minds of Palestinians that the peace is durable.”
A year ago, the Israeli government promised the US that it would demarcate the built-up area of each West Bank settlement and that there would be no further construction outside those limits.
In April 2004, the Israelis wrote to Condoleezza Rice, then US national security adviser and now the Secretary of State, agreeing to the creation of a joint group of Israeli and American experts to determine the demarcation.
But Israel backtracked by refusing to permit the big settlements blocs of Maale Adumim, Ariel and Gush Etzion to be included. The blocs, which eat deep into the West Bank and divide up Palestinian territory, are home to most of the 230 000 settlers in the occupied territories outside of East Jerusalem.
In the same letter, Sharon’s chief aide, Dov Weisglass, promised the government would give the US a list of Jewish hilltop outposts that are illegal but often used as cover to expand established settlements, and dates on which they would be removed. But that commitment has also fallen flat.
The aerial photographs were taken on orders of the Defence Minister, Shaul Mofaz, after a former Israeli chief prosecutor investigating the construction of the West Bank outposts, Talia Sasson, complained that no aerial pictures had been taken since 2000.
Sasson’s report, released a fortnight ago, exposed government complicity in systematic fraud, ”institutional lawbreaking” and theft of private Palestinian land in establishing outposts.
Last week, Sharon said the outposts will be removed but not until after evacuation of about 8 000 settlers from the Gaza Strip is completed in the autumn.
A group of 124 Israelis, Palestinians and foreigners has written to Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, warning that they do not believe Sharon is committed to the road map’s vision of a complete end to the occupation and creation of a viable Palestinian state.
”There are many signs to the contrary: not only explicit statements by Sharon and his aides … but also unilateral acts on the ground intended to grab Palestinian territory and effectively annex it to Israel,” the letter said.
The signatories, who include the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams, academics, former diplomats and peace activists, singled out construction of the barrier for dividing communities and grabbing land.
Several thousand left-wing supporters of Sharon’s disengagement plan rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening to back the Gaza pull-out. — Guardian Unlimited Â