Israel okays WB homes for Gaza settlers

A settler official said fewer than 20 families had been waiting to move into Maskiot, in the Jordan Valley, under a months-old government promise to build the first permanent housing in the West Bank for Gaza evacuees.

The radio said Defence Minister Amir Peretz gave the final go-ahead for the construction of 30 homes in Maskiot, a former army base that currently houses a military academy for high school students.

The Defence Ministry had no immediate comment on the report. A US-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace plan known as the "road map" calls for a halt to settlement construction in the West Bank, land Palestinians want for a state.

A regional council official in the Jordan Valley said building work in Maskiot would begin in two weeks, the radio said.

The 30 families lived in two of the 21 settlements Israel dismantled in the Gaza Strip in 2005 under a "disengagement plan" promoted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the report said.

Some 8,500 settlers were pulled out of the Gaza Strip, along with Israeli troops, after 38 years of occupation.

Emily Amrusy, a spokeswoman for the Jewish settler's umbrella YESHA Council, said 42 of the 1,700 families evacuated from the Gaza Strip had moved to the West Bank and were living in temporary housing.

"The explanation (for the low numbers) is that most of the families wanted to live in southern Israel to be close to working places and relatives," she said.

She said the government had promised to build "a neighbourhood" for Gaza evacuees in Maskiot and they planned to move into caravans at the site to await the construction of permanent housing.