Israel is going to build 1,400 new apartments in the West Bank and the disputed part of Jerusalem, officials announced, despite objections by Palestinians and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In violence yesterday, Israeli troops shot and killed two Hamas gunmen during a raid on the central Gaza Strip, Hamas said.
The army confirmed troops operating against rocket launching squads in the area shot toward two gunman who approached them.
Israel's construction announcements on Monday came just after Rice left for Amman to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In the Jordanian capital, Rice said Israel should stop such construction projects, but to no avail.
The move reflects the political weakness of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert -- who continues to support construction in disputed areas because it allows him to keep his fragile coalition intact -- and further damages Abbas' standing.
Olmert insisted Israel is not building new settlements, nor is it confiscating additional land for existing ones. Instead, he said, Israel is building only in places it intends to keep even after a peace treaty is signed.
Palestinians charge that the ongoing construction is sabotaging peace efforts.
Though they tacitly agree that Israel will, in the end, retain some or all of these areas, the bulldozers, cranes and work crews are tangible evidence to Palestinians that peace negotiations are not helping their cause, further complicating Abbas' position.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says he will consider opening the Gaza Strip's crossings if Palestinian militants there stop bombarding Israel with rockets.
The statement is significant because Barak had previously opposed opening passages to the territory. Gaza is controlled by Islamic Hamas militants.
Defense officials said yesterday that the announcement was meant to strengthen Abbas in his power struggle with Hamas.
Political realities are also driving Olmert. His own popularity battered by his inconclusive 2006 war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, he depends on Shas, a hawkish ultra-Orthodox party, for his coalition government's parliamentary majority.
An announcement of 600 new housing units to go up in Jerusalem came from the Jerusalem city hall, but the larger project -- 800 new apartments in Beitar, an ultra-Orthodox settlement, came from Shas. Olmert is not in a position to deny it: Shas leaders have made repeated threats to bring down his government if Olmert crosses them.
Rice arrived in the region on Saturday for three days of talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials. At a news conference with Abbas in Jordan, Rice said it was her impression that both sides were serious about advancing the talks.
"I think it's all moving in the right direction," she said.
But she also warned Israel to halt new settlement activities that could upset progress.
"Settlement activity should stop -- expansion should stop," Rice said.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the construction plans and appealed to the US to intervene.
"This announcement is changing the situation on the ground for the worse," Erekat said.
East Jerusalem, captured in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed by Israel shortly afterward, is home to 180,000 Jews, who live in neighborhoods built after the war.
Because of the annexation, Israel does not consider construction there to be settlement activity, but the Palestinians and the international community do, because no country has recognized Israel's annexation.
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