The Israeli prime minister has expressed his intentions to United States to hold on to the Beit El settlement enclave after a peace agreement with Palestine, state media reported on Thursday. Other settlements include the Etzion, Maale Adumim and Ariel blocs which Israel has long said it would keep.
The move by PM Benjamin Netanyahu is believed to adversely affect and complicate the US-backed efforts to reach an accord.
Netanyahu’s spokesman has declined to comment on the report.
According to the media report, such a move would leave 13 percent of the West Bank in Israeli hands, which is likely to dismay Palestinians who want the area for a future state.
The media report attributed its information to an anonymous source familiar with the details of five-month-old, U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
There was no immediate comment from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Beit El is next to the Palestinian city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority run by Mahmoud Abbas is headquartered.
The future of settlements is a core issue in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians fear Israeli enclaves will deny them a contiguous and viable country.
Israel, in tandem with the release of dozens of Palestinian prisoners as part of the current negotiations, has stoked Palestinian anger by announcing new housing construction plans in areas it has said will remain in its hands.
Palestinians seek a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel captured those areas in the 1967 war and pulled its troops out of the Gaza Strip, now run by Hamas Islamists opposed to the peace talks, in 2005.
More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Most countries consider the settlements illegal.
