Israel moving ahead with new settler housing

      
Israel is going ahead with plans to build more than 1,000 settler homes in the West Bank.                

Military spokesman Maj. Guy Inbar said on Thursday that plans were advanced to construct homes in the settlements of Itamar and Bruchin.     

The plans still require official endorsement following public appeals. An anti-settlement activist, Hagit Ofran from Peace Now, estimates construction could begin in about a year, if approved.             

West Bank settlement building lies at the heart of the current impasse in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.              

The Palestinians refuse to resume talks with Israel as long as it continues to build in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands they claim as part of a future state, along with the Gaza Strip. Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Mideast war.            


AP