Israel completes plans for separate West Bank road network

But the plan, named "Everything Flows," has sparked anger among the settlers as well as the Palestinians who have labelled it as a form of apartheid.

The new network, expected to cost up to 130 million dollars, is "an additional security measure" to separate the two communities, General Yair Naveh, head of Israel's central command, said on Wednesday.

Palestinian gunmen have carried out dozens of roadside attacks against Israelis in the West Bank since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in 2000. There are around 250,000 Jewish settlers living across the West Bank.

Some 2.4 million Palestinians living in the West Bank are confronted by dozens of checkpoints set up by Israeli troops in an effort to control movement and clamp down on armed militants in the territory.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said last October that the plan, which had then yet to be detailed, would be "similar to the apartheid system which was applied in South Africa."

Maariv said that, to avoid such accusations, the Palestinians will be permitted to drive on the roads intended for Israelis, but will still encounter so many checkpoints that they will effectively be deterred from using the roads.

Even so, some settlers are unhappy.

One, at the Einav settlement, near Tulkarem, said "our children will have to make a one-and-a-half hour detour to get to their school in Shavei Shomron, instead of a ten-minute bus ride."

"Cutting us off in this way will in effect wipe out all the settlements in this area," the unnamed settler said. "We will not agree to this under any circumstances.

Shaul Goldstein, mayor of the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements, said he fears "the plan already indicates which settlements Israel intends to evacuate in the future" as part of an agreement leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

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