JERUSALEM, Nov 14: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak approved dozens of construction projects in Jewish settlements in the West Bank in recent months despite international commitments to freeze such activity, the Haaretz daily said on Friday.

Some of the permits for construction were granted in areas beyond the large settlement blocs Israel wants to keep under any peace agreement reached with the Palestinians, the liberal newspaper said.

Israel reiterated a commitment to freeze all settlement activity when Middle East peace talks were revived at a US-sponsored conference in November 2007.

The defence ministry slammed the Haaretz article and its headline which read: “Barak sanctioned settlement expansion.” “This article and its headline are riddled with erroneous and biased data,” spokesman Ronen Moshe said.

“Anyone can judge why such a biased and wrong article was published at this time and what’s behind the timing,” he said in apparent reference to campaigning for February 10 legislative elections.

Ehud Barak, who heads the Labour party, had insisted in January that all Israeli construction projects in the West Bank should go to him for approval.

Haaretz said that since April the minister had authorised the marketing of at least 400 homes and plots in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.—AFP