JERUSALEM, Nov 7: The construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank has accelerated even as Israel and the Palestinians work to re-launch the Middle East peace process, a settler watchdog said on Wednesday.

The construction of settlements “puts the chances of success at the Annapolis meeting in grave danger,” Yariv Oppenheimer, secretary general of the Israeli Peace Now group said.“If it continues like this we will soon have a settler state instead of a Palestinian state” in the West Bank, he said.

In a report covering the period from May to October, Peace Now said construction is under way in 88 settlements, ranging from single buildings to the development of hundreds of housing units.

Citing government statistics published in June, the group said the number of settlers in the West Bank has reached 267,500, an annual growth of 5.8 per cent, versus 1.8 per cent growth within Israel during the same period.

“This means that the growth of settlements is much more than the ‘natural growth’ and includes massive migration of settlers to the West Bank,” the report said.

Earlier this week Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to revive the peace process according to the so-called roadmap, a blueprint for peace with the Palestinians drafted in 2003.

The document, which has made no progress in the past four years, calls on Israel to freeze settlement activity and to withdraw all settlements constructed after March 2001.

Israel and the Palestinians have been locked in discussions over the past several weeks aimed at preparing a joint document ahead of a US-sponsored international peace meeting expected in Annapolis, Maryland later this year.

A senior Palestinian official said on Tuesday that the meeting was scheduled “in principle” to take place on Nov 26.

In the past Israel has insisted it will limit settlements to “natural growth” but the report says a new 600-unit ultra-Orthodox Jewish housing community was being added to Givat Zeev settlement, northwest of Jerusalem.

The group also found new construction in 34 of 105 “outpost” settlements, charging that settlers have started constructing trailer home “caravans” on site to avoid bans on transporting them without permits.

The report also refers to the construction of the controversial E-1 road, which Israel says is intended to facilitate Palestinian movement but which Palestinians charge is part of a larger project to split the West Bank in half.

If the plan materialises, “it could close the door on chances to reach a permanent agreement with the Palestinians,” the report said.

Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 but never annexed the territory, which Palestinians have demanded for a future state. All West Bank settlements are illegal under international law.

On Sunday some 2,000 ultra-Orthodox demonstrators, many of them West Bank settlers, rallied in central Jerusalem against the ongoing talks with the Palestinians, in the first such action since the process was launched.—AFP