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Sharon Orders Launching 3 New Desert Settlements: Official
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered officials to begin planning three new settlements in the Halutza Dunes area of the Western Negev desert in southern Israel, in an effort to foil any future attempt to cede the area to Palestinian control, Army Radio reported Monday.
During the administration of Sharon's predecessor Ehud Barak, Israeli and Palestinian officials raised the possibility of trading the unpopulated dunes area to Palestinian control under a deal that would thus allow more Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories to remain in place.
Shmulik Hitman, head of Ramat Hanegev Regional Council in southern Israel, told the radio that under plans being formulated, 20,000 Israelis would live in the Halutza bloc by 2010.
Barak had vowed to keep 80 percent of Jewish settlements under Israeli sovereignty while indicating willingness to evacuate small and scattered ones.
However, Sharon, who took power two months ago, has said that he has no intention whatsoever of evacuating any settlements from the Palestinian land.
Israel has built more than 140 settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since the 1967 Middle East War. The future of the settlements is one of the core issues to be settled in the Israeli-Palestinian final status talks, which also include the status of Jerusalem, border, water resources and the future of Palestinian refugees.
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