JERUSALEM — Palestinians reacted with dismay Monday to Israel's announcement that it would build 3,500 more housing units in and near the West Bank's largest Jewish settlement in apparent contravention of a U.S.-backed peace blueprint.
Meanwhile, after several days of delay and argument, Israel late Monday formally handed over the West Bank town of Tulkarm to Palestinian security control. Tulkarm is the second of five Palestinian towns and cities from which Israeli troops are pulling back under an agreement reached last month at a summit in Egypt.
The Tulkarm area is a stronghold of Palestinian militant groups, a factor that could pose a serious challenge for Palestinian forces policing it. The young bomber who blew himself up Feb. 25 outside a Tel Aviv nightclub, killing five Israelis, came from a village outside the town.
It was already well after dark when the hand-over agreement was finalized, but uniformed Palestinian police immediately began fanning out in the streets. The main Israeli checkpoint on the town's edge was to be dismantled this morning.
Palestinian rejoicing over the Tulkarm hand-over was dampened by word of the Israeli plan to substantially expand the settlement of Maale Adumim. The construction in the town of 30,000 people was first reported by the daily Yediot Aharonot newspaper Monday and later confirmed by Israeli officials.
Israel has long held that Maale Adumim, an American-style suburb with shopping malls, swimming pools and manicured lawns, is an integral part of nearby Jerusalem. The government made it official last week that the settlement would be on the Israeli side of a barrier being built in the West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he intends to retain Maale Adumim and other large West Bank settlement blocs close to Jerusalem in exchange for a scheduled withdrawal from the Gaza Strip this summer. But Palestinians view the latest expansion with particular distress, because it will bring Maale Adumim's boundaries closer to East Jerusalem, which they claim as their capital.
The building project, they say, will not only cut East Jerusalem off from Palestinian communities in the West Bank, but will place a wide wedge of Jewish homes between the northern and southern West Bank. That would be a blow to Palestinian hopes for controlling contiguous territory to form a nation.
