Jewish settlers build new caravan neighbourhood in West Bank (Extra)

Feb 20, 2008, 9:57 GMT

Jerusalem - Local settler leaders are building a new caravan neighbourhood in a Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank, an Israeli newspaper reported Wednesday.

Construction of the new neighbourhood of 27 caravans in Ali, north of Ramallah, began last month and will be completed in the coming days, Ha'aretz said.

The construction is taking place outside government auspices, but thus far the government has taken no action to block the new neighbourhood, the dovish, anti-settlement daily said.

It said several houses were also being built in the Maskiyot settlement in the Jordan Valley, north-east of Nablus which stirred uproar a year ago.

The construction was taking place without government permits, Ha'aretz said.

In December 2006, Israel's housing ministry authorized the construction of a new residential neighbourhood of 30 apartments in Maskiyot, which until then had served mainly as a military outpost. Israel cancelled the project when the Palestinians angrily said this constituted the creation of the first new Jewish settlement in the West Bank in more than a decade.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman said in a reaction to the Ha'aretz report his government was 'very serious' about its commitment to allowing construction only within the boundaries of existing Jewish settlements in the West Bank, while freezing construction elsewhere.

'The prime minister said there will be no new settlements, neither will there be outward expansion of existing settlements,' Mark Regev told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. He was unable to immediately say whether that meant the government would take action against the new construction in Ali and Maskiyot.