Israel said today it planned to beef up security and education services in some Jewish settler outposts in the West Bank despite its pledge to dismantle them under a US-backed peace "road map".
The Israeli settlement monitoring group Peace Now said the plans proved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had lied when he promised Washington earlier this year that Israel would remove dozens of small, isolated outposts under the peace plan.
The plans coincide with a decision by Israel's parliamentary finance committee to allot $29 million to Jewish settlements and communities along the boundary between Israel and the West Bank.
"Sharon promised to take down the outposts and has lied to the Israeli public and to the Palestinian partners," said Mr Yariv Oppenheimer, Peace Now director, of the plans to give outposts additional services. "The facts speak for themselves."
The international community considers the nearly 150 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as illegal under international law. Israel disputes this and accuses Palestinians of failing to meet their obligation under the "road map" to rein in militants.
Israel removed several mostly uninhabited West Bank outposts earlier this year but Peace Now has said that new outposts, usually made up of small clusters of caravans, have since gone up in their place.
With the road map on hold amid tit-for-tat violence, there have been no further efforts to remove outposts, which are estimated to number about 50 and were built without government permission unlike the many more permanent settlements.
The peace plan also calls on Israel to halt construction on larger settlements established on occupied land seized in the 1967 Middle East war, and requires Palestinians to rein in militants spearheading a three-year uprising for independence.