Israel on Tuesday decided to legalise three settler outposts in a move denounced by the Palestinians as a dismissive response to a letter from president Mahmud Abbas calling for a settlement freeze. A ministerial committee has decided “to formalise the status of three communities which were established in the 1990s,” the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. The move sparked an angry response from the Palestinians and from Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, which said it was the first time the government had created new settlements since the 1990s. The three outposts — Bruchin, Rechelim and Sansana — had no Israeli legal status since they were set up, but will now join the 120 official settlements dotted across the occupied West Bank that are home to more than 342,000 people. The Palestinian leadership said the decision was “expected” and said it was “the Israeli answer” to a letter from Abbas to Netanyahu, in which he laid out the Palestinian grievances over the collapse of the peace process and outlined his demands for restarting negotiations.