JERUSALEM, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Palestinians have been subjected to a sharp rise in violence from Israeli settlers and security forces in the flashpoint city of Hebron in the last seven months, human rights groups said on Friday.

Dozens of cases in which Jewish settlers attacked Palestinians after they moved into a large Palestinian house last March are listed in a report published by B'Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

JERUSALEM, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - Israel denied on Friday that freshly ordered Arab land expropriations between Jerusalem and a key Jewish settlement would be used to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank.

'The confiscated land is intended to build roads, given the completion of the security fence around Jerusalem, and has nothing to do with any expansion of Maale Adumim,' Miri Eisin, a government spokeswoman, told AFP.

SHANNON , Ireland, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she had requested 'clarification' from Israel over its decision to confiscate Arab land near Jerusalem.

'I called their ambassador to the US yesterday and asked for clarification. I am waiting for one,' Rice told reporters on her plane prior to making a stopover in Shannon, Ireland, en route to Moscow.

WASHINGTON, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - The United States refused to immediately comment Wednesday on Israel's decision to confiscate Arab land near Jerusalem, one day before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to head to the region.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that Washington had not yet determined what its official reaction would be.

'(I'm) still looking into it,' he said. 'I want to understand better the facts on the ground from our people in the field.'

'As soon as I have those, I'll be happy to provide you with a reaction.'

AMMAN, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Jordan on Wednesday rejected Israel's plans to to confiscate Arab land outside occupied east Jerusalem and warned that the move would have negative repercussions for Middle East peace efforts.

'Jordan rejects the Israeli measure that violates international laws and resolutions, which considers the West Bank and east Jerusalem as occupied territories,' government spokesman Nasser Judeh said in a statement carried by state-run Petra news agency.

CAIRO, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Egypt on Tuesday strongly criticised an Israeli plan to confiscate Arab land outside east Jerusalem that has revived fears that the Jewish state wants to split the occupied West Bank in two.

The plan 'proves the correctness of reports that Israel is planning to go ahead with its scheme to separate the northern parts of the West Bank from its southern ones,' Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said in a statement.

JERUSALEM, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Israel has ordered the confiscation of Arab land outside east Jerusalem, the army and Palestinian officials said on Tuesday, reviving fears that the occupied West Bank could be split in two.

Hassan Abed Rabbo at the Palestinian local government ministry said the late September order covers 110 hectares (272 acres) in four Palestinian villages between east Jerusalem and the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim.

JERUSALEM, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Israel has ordered the confiscation of Arab land outside east Jerusalem, a newspaper and Palestinian officials said on Tuesday, reviving fears that the occupied West Bank could be split in two.

Issued late September, the order covers 110 hectares (272 acres) in four Palestinian villages between east Jerusalem and the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, said Hassan Abed Rabbo, a senior official at the Palestinian local government ministry.

JERUSALEM, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - Jewish settlers launched a campaign Tuesday against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's efforts to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians under which Israel could pull out of large swathes of the occupied West Bank.

The campaign, led by the Yesha settler movement, comes a day before Olmert meets with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, with negotiating teams set to meet for the first time to begin hammering out an agreement ahead of a November US-sponsored peace summit.

JERUSALEM, Oct 1, 2007 (AFP) - Hundreds of Israeli settlers and right-wing activists on Monday abandoned four of the five sites in the occupied West Bank where they aimed to establish new wildcat outposts, police said.

'They voluntarily evacuated four of the sites,' police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

'We did not have to intervene. There is still a group of around 80 people near the Eilon Moreh colony near Nablus. They should also leave the area soon,' he said.

On Sunday hundreds of right-wingers had occupied five sites throughout the West Bank.

HALHUL, West Bank, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - Hundreds of Israeli settlers and right-wingers set up at four sites throughout the occupied West Bank on Sunday during a Jewish religious holiday, aiming to create new wildcat outposts.

Activists had announced last week their intention to set up five new outposts across the Palestinian territory in defiance of Israeli authorities, who had declared the sites closed military areas.

AL-MUFAQARA, West Bank, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - Mahmud Hamamda still lives in the cave his grandfather chiselled out of a rocky hillside in the remote hills of the southern West Bank more than 100 years ago.

But above ground Jewish settlements now huddle on nearby hills, his grazing land has become a special military zone, and Hamamda, a poor shepherd, has had to defy the Israeli occupation so he can remain in his underground home.

JERUSALEM, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - Jewish settlers and right-wing activists on Tuesday announced plans to erect five new illegal outposts across the occupied West Bank in defiance of Israeli authorities.

Thousands of activists were expected to take part in the event, scheduled for next Sunday, during the week-long Jewish holiday of the Feast of the Tabernacles, event organiser Nadia Matar told AFP.

Israeli police have not authorised the event, she said. Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld confirmed he had no knowledge of it.

JERUSALEM, Aug 31, 2007 (AFP) - The head of one of the largest construction companies in Israel has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of embezzling millions of dollars when his business went bankrupt, police said on Friday.

Boaz Yona, one of the main businessmen building Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, fled abroad after his company Heftziba went insolvent, leaving thousands of home-buyers high and dry with unfinished properties.

JERUSALEM, Aug 3, 2007 (AFP) - Heftsiba, one of Israel's largest firms building settlements in the occupied West Bank, is in danger of closing, according to media reports on Friday.

The company, which specialises in constructing inexpensive accommodation for ultra-Orthodox families, is in debt to the tune of 200 million dollars, the reports said.

Heftsiba has now had to halt work on thousands of homes at the settlements of Betar Ilit, Modiin Ilit and Maale Adumim in the West Bank, as well as at Har Homa in east Jerusalem.