TEL AVIV, Dec 5: Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has approved plans that would seal off northern Israel from the West Bank by extending a security fence to defend against Palestinian attacks, government officials said on Thursday.

Construction of the fence began this year to try to prevent attacks by Palestinian militants.

The fence is expected to cut into West Bank territory in some areas, shielding Jewish settlements built on land Israel has occupied since the 1967 war.

A defence ministry official said the new 42-km barrier would be built in northern Israel from Megiddo Junction, past the Gilboa mountains, to the town of Beit Shean, where assailants killed six Israelis in an attack last week.

“There was a decision in principle to continue the northern section of the fence. Now they must find the budget resources for it. The track (for the fence) has been agreed on,” said Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon.

“Because of the increase in the wave of terror, they must increase the track to this area, especially after the recent infiltrations. There is a breach (in security) there.”

The fence has drawn the ire both of right-wing Israelis and Palestinians.

Israeli critics say the barrier amounts to a de facto border which shuts out Jewish settlements in the West Bank from the country proper, while Palestinians decry the project as an excuse for Israel to expropriate more of their lands.

Netzah Mashiah, head of the construction project at the defence ministry, said the new section would cost about 48 million dollars.

The entire 220 million dollars fence project is expected to cover 350kms, roughly along the lines of the West Bank border before Israel captured the territory in 1967.

Work on the first 110-km section began in June.

Making clear the fence could in places take over private Palestinian and Israeli-owned property, Mashiah said: “We are trying to build it on state lands to shorten the process, but we can’t do so in every place.”

MODERATION: With the legislative elections less than two months away, Sharon continued the tactic which led him to a crushing victory against hawkish Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the Likud primaries a week ago, advocating moderate policies to gnaw on the Labour party’s electorate.