Israel plans to raze West Bank settler outpost

HAVAT MAON, West Bank, May 30 (Reuters) Israel today gave notice that it planned to raze an outpost erected by Jewish settlers in the West Bank without state approval, signalling a possible crackdown in compliance with a US-led peace plan.

The Civil Administration, a department in Israel's Defence Ministry that oversees non-military matters in occupied territory, said demolition orders were reissued for 18 homes in Havat Maon, after initial orders from last year expired.

''The residents have 24 hours to contest the order. If that fails, then it is up to the army to carry it out,'' the administration's spokesman, Adam Avidan, said.

He had no word on why the original orders had not been implemented.

Under the US-led ''road map'' to Palestinian statehood in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, alongside Israel, the Jewish state is obligated to dismantle scores of unauthorised outposts put up since March 2001.

But the requirement has gone largely unmet, as has the road map's call on the Palestinians to disarm factions spearheading a revolt that erupted in 2000. One of them, Hamas, now runs the Palestinian government and refuses to renounce violence.

Some Israeli analysts suggested the Defence Ministry put off a large-scale evacuation of West Bank outposts, which would likely entail violent confrontation with settlers, in order to dedicate security forces to last year's withdrawal from Gaza.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was elected in March, has vowed to remove outposts as part of a plan to evacuate isolated West Bank settlements and annex major settlement blocs to Israel in the absence of peace talks with the Palestinians.

The World Court has branded all the settlements as illegal.

Israel disputes this. US President George W Bush, chief patron of the road map, has said Israel could expect to keep settlement blocs under a peace accord with the Palestinians.

Defence Minister Amir Peretz said earlier this month that he considered the outposts a ''disgrace'' and pledged to move against them ''in the very near future.'' Haaretz newspaper said the Israeli government had put off the evacuation of 24 earmarked outposts to allow for talks with the Yesha settler council. It was not clear from the report whether Havat Maon was on this roster.

Reuters SY VV1529