TEL AVIV, Oct 2: Israel unveiled plans on Thursday to build more than 600 new homes in Jewish settlements, drawing fresh international and Palestinian condemnation a day after it approved expanding its West Bank separation barrier.

Israel says the barrier will act as a bulwark against suicide bombers, while Palestinians call it a unilateral “land grab” intended to cement Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which the Palestinians want in an independent state.

The government published building tenders for three West Bank settlements in defiance of the U.S.-backed roadmap that calls for a halt to settlement construction.

Housing Ministry spokesman Koby Bleich said the plan for 604 new units near occupied Al Quds — 50 in Maale Adumim, 530 in Beitar Illit, and 24 more in Ariel, near the West Bank city of Nablus, — was in accordance with government policy.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday Washington had “concerns” about the announced construction plans. The international community views all Jewish settlements on occupied territory as illegal. Israel disputes this.

Palestinian cabinet member Yasser Abed Rabbo called the new construction “evidence that the roadmap has been fully assassinated by an Israeli policy of settlement expansion”.

Palestinian anger had already been stoked by the Israeli government’s endorsement on Wednesday of plans for the next phase in a 350-km network of electronic fences and concrete walls that cuts deep into the West Bank.

“Israel is pursuing its crimes by expanding this racist and Nazi wall that expropriates our land,” Palestinian President Yasser Arafat told reporters at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

He accused Israel of “sabotaging and destroying the peace process” and appealed to the “Quartet” of Middle East peacemakers — the United States, Russia, European Union and United Nations — to stop the project.

Mr Powell said U.S. President George Bush “continues to believe that the fence presents a problem” and in Warsaw European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana deplored the barrier plan.

“I do not think we can accept a wall that creates decisions on the ground about land that...has not been divided,” he said.

Israel says the fence is necessary to seal out suicide bombers and protect settlements and denies international suggestions that it is creating a de facto border prejudging the outcome of future negotiations.

Palestinians were alarmed at Israel’s estimate that new sections of the barrier would leave some 60,000 inhabitants on the Israeli side, making it difficult for them to reach other parts of the West Bank.

SETTLERS NOT HAPPY: Jewish settlers also found no comfort in the barrier. “If the fence goes up, the Palestinians gain from it. The Israeli people have more to lose,” said Evita Mazouz, resident of the Psagot settlement overlooking Ramallah.