JERUSALEM, Dec 27: Jewish settlers set up 13 makeshift outposts in the West Bank on Tuesday in a show of strength as debate over the occupied territory, home to 2.4 million Palestinians, gathers pace in Israel ahead of March 28 elections. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has vowed to keep major West Bank settlements, but has said some isolated communities may one day be dismantled. Israel is required to remove all unauthorized outposts under a US-led plan for peace with the Palestinians.

Datya Yitzhaki, a former Gaza settler and spokeswoman for the ultranationalist group ‘Land of Israel Faithful’, said hundreds of youths had begun building wooden and stone houses and pitched tents close to a dozen established settlements.

“We intend to expand and build on these, we will build on what has been destroyed and show that settlement will resume,” she said.

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, urged Israel ‘to cease these activities and uproot the outposts’.

An Israeli military source said the army was treating it as a protest of tent encampments and that the settlers had said they would eventually leave.

“If this does not happen, the army will see to it that the outposts are evacuated,” the military source said.

Israel is meant to remove dozens of West Bank outposts not authorized by its government under the US-led ‘road map’ for Palestinian statehood, but almost all remain.

Israel has also failed to stop building inside established settlements, all of which have been branded illegal by the World Court. Israel disputes this.

The Palestinians have not met their own road map requirement to begin disarming militant groups waging a revolt against Israel that erupted in September 2000.

Gaza Attacked: Israeli air raids struck buildings and roads in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with the army poised to implement a security zone in the Palestinian territory intended to thwart militant rocket attacks.

Army helicopters fired missiles, heavily damaging offices connected to the Fatah and roads in the northern part of the territory.—Reuters/AFP