Israel Funded Illegal Outposts, Audit Finds

The Israeli government quietly provided about $6.5 million over a 3 1/2-year period to build unauthorized offshoots of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, according to an auditor’s report released Wednesday.

The removal of such outposts -- mini-communities that sometimes consist of little more than a rusting trailer or a rickety water tower -- is a central tenet of the “road map,” the bogged-down U.S.-backed peace plan to which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government agreed.

The settlement offshoots, though usually small, are significant because they represent an effort by the settlers to lay claim to additional West Bank territory, usually by leapfrogging to rocky hilltops adjacent to existing settlements.

The disclosure that the government had been funneling money to the outposts all along surprised few Israelis, but it brought angry demands from peace activists and left-wing politicians for the removal and prosecution of Housing Minister Effi Eitam.

Eitam heads the National Religious Party, the chief patron of the settler movement and a coalition partner in Sharon’s government.

Tensions between the prime minister and far-right elements in his Cabinet are running high after Sharon’s Likud Party rejected his plan to withdraw from all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four isolated ones in the West Bank. An intensive, grass-roots lobbying campaign by settlers contributed to the sharp rebuff of the initiative by party members in a referendum Sunday.

The issue of settlement outposts has been somewhat on the back burner since Sharon unveiled his plan to get out of Gaza.

Israeli troops have removed some of the ramshackle offshoots, but settlers -- most often members of a loosely organized group known as the “hilltop youth” -- usually reestablish them within days.

The report by Eliezer Goldberg, the state comptroller, said that between January 2000 and June 2003, the Housing Ministry provided about $6.5 million for infrastructure for the outposts, including roads, water outlets and electrical supplies.

“Finally, we have real proof that the settlers themselves were not putting up the money to do this; the government was giving it to them,” said Yaariv Oppenheimer of the Israeli group Peace Now, which has tracked the settlement outposts for years.

By the group’s count, there are 102 unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank, 61 of them built since Sharon took office in early 2001.

Twenty-one outposts were removed, but only one of those was inhabited and most others were quickly rebuilt, Oppenheimer said.

In an unusual move, Israel on Wednesday freed a founding member of the militant group Hamas. Mohammed Taha, 68, had been in custody for 14 months.

Taha returned home to a triumphant welcome at the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

It was not immediately clear why Taha was freed. At the time of his capture, Israel described him as a high-ranking leader, although some security sources said his main status was that of a figurehead and spiritual leader.

Elsewhere, Israeli troops continued their pursuit of Hamas operatives. Imad Mohammed Janajra, described by Israel as a senior local commander, was killed by soldiers in the village of Taluza, near the West Bank city of Nablus.

The army said Janajra was deeply involved in planning suicide attacks.

In other developments Wednesday, Palestinian lawmakers took the highly unusual step of firing a senior official who was implicated in possible corruption.

Parliament fired Amin Haddad, head of the Palestinian Monetary Authority, after an inquiry suggested large losses by the official Bank of Palestine could be traced at least in part to him. The bank has lost $34 million in three years.

Establishing fiscal transparency has been a priority for reform-minded Palestinian Authority members in recent months after international donors warned aid money would dry up unless the Palestinians could account for it.

On the Israeli side, Sharon’s aides said the prime minister would travel to Washington next week for talks with U.S. officials on how to salvage his plan for a Gaza withdrawal.

While the prime minister’s camp sought to regroup from the weekend’s setback, long-simmering tensions on Israel’s northern border boiled over into an exchange of fire.

Israeli warplanes bombed what the military said were bases of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah. No injuries were reported. The strike came after antiaircraft shells were fired at Israeli jets from the Lebanese side, causing no damage or injuries.

Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, and the northern frontier has been generally quiet despite occasional flare-ups. Israel believes, however, that Hezbollah collaborates with Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.