Parliament's finance committee gave its green light late Monday to the transfer of nearly 20 million dollars for building more settlements in the occupied West Bank and protecting the homes of Jews in annexed east Jerusalem.
The committee approved the package by a margin of eight votes to seven, with two members from the centrist Shinui party, opposed to investment inside the territories, absent.
Part of the funds, originally earmarked to build apartments for people who do not own property, will also be used to fortify positions around one of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s houses in Jerusalem's Old City, the daily Haaretz said.
Opposition members cautioned against extreme-right Housing Minister Effi Eitam's attempt to divert some of the funds for development work in Gaza, despite Sharon's plan to evacuate most settlements there.
Eitam, who chairs the National Religious Party (NRP), has threatened to quit Sharon's coalition government if the premier goes ahead and dismantles 17 Gaza settlements, possibly by next summer.
Sharon's proposal, which is part of a larger plan to unilaterally disengage from the Palestinians amid the impasse in the peace process, is also opposed by MPs within his right-wing Likud party.
The ranking Likud member in the finance committee, Daniel Ben-Lulu, was quoted as saying in The Jerusalem Post that "so far there has been no decision to uproot anyone."
"I oppose retreating from any place that will end up being taken over and used by terrorists as a base for carrying out attacks on innocent people," he said in reference to the Gaza pullout.
Opinion polls, however, have shown Sharon's Gaza plan is supported by a majority of Israelis.
Under the terms of a US-backed, internationally-drafted roadmap, which Sharon says the Palestinians have failed to implement, Israel is obliged to freeze all settlement activity in the Palestinian territories.
The hawkish premier potentially suffered another blow when Eitam announced his plan to introduce a bill preventing the army from evacuating settlers and dismantling settlements.
Eitam said he hoped to convince the Ministerial Committee on Laws to adopt the draft bill as a government proposal. Were he to fail, his party would then submit the bill directly to parliament.
"For the army's sake, for that of the state and that of the nation, the Israeli army can no (longer) be involved in such a sensitive matter which divides the nation and which must be incumbent upon police and border police forces," he said.
In Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian workers Tuesday blocked access to the Erez industrial zone, just inside Israel, to protest lengthy security controls which they said cost the life of a colleague who was crushed to death the day before.
"We have the right to earn a living with dignity", "No to humiliation at Erez", "Erez crossing, crossing to death", chanted the protesters.
