JERUSALEM - Israel announced plans yesterday to build hundreds of homes in the West Bank and disputed East Jerusalem, setting off another crisis in the embattled peace process ahead of the arrival of a key US mediator.
The fatal shooting of eight rabbinical seminary students by a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem dampened low expectations for negotiations that aim for a treaty this year.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the new plans further undermine talks between Israel and the West Bank administration of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
"Why do they insist on doing this and humiliating Abu Mazen in front of the Palestinian public," he said, using Abbas's nickname.
Israel's housing minister, Zeev Boim, said the construction would include 350 apartments in Givat Zeev, a West Bank settlement just outside Jerusalem, and 750 homes in Pisgat Zeev, a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
Israel captured and annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast War but Palestinians claim it as the capital of a future Palestinian state and the annexation is not recognized internationally.
Givat Zeev is in one of the three major settlement blocs that Israel intends to retain in any peace agreement. President Bush has signaled support for the Israeli position, and some Palestinians have expressed willingness to consider swapping land where settlement blocs stand for equal amounts of Israeli land.
Boim told Israel Radio that the Givat Zeev construction began eight years ago but was suspended because of fighting with the Palestinians.
"When violence subsided, demand grew again and contractors renewed their permits to build there," he said.
Erekat said he has appealed to the United States to pressure Israel to halt the projects. Palestinians charge that Israeli settlement expansion is sabotaging their efforts to build a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and Abbas promised Bush in November to work for a peace treaty this year, renewing negotiations that were frozen during seven years of violence. But the talks have already been interrupted several times because of arguments over Israeli construction in disputed areas.
Abbas then suspended the talks because of Israel's Gaza offensive last week to try to stop daily Palestinian rocket barrages on southern Israel. He agreed to renew them only under direct pressure from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Then came the seminary attack, hours after Palestinians in Gaza set off a bomb on the border, killing two Israeli soldiers, one a Bedouin and the other a Jew.
