THE Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, touring Jewish settlements in the West Bank yesterday, dismissed as "groundless" reports that a US study showed more than a quarter of settler homes were empty.
Israel's Haaretz daily said that Washington, citing US data showing a large number of homes lying vacant, believed any expansion of Jewish settlements was unnecessary.
"This is a groundless assertion, I can assure you that this is not the situation," Mr Netanyahu told reporters.
Speaking at a windswept vineyard in the Jordan Valley region of the West Bank, he said: "I can't give you precise figures, but the . . . so-called report today is false by an order of magnitude, to put it mildly."
The settlements issue has taken centre stage in a crisis in PLO-Israel talks deadlocked since March, when Mr Netanyahu broke ground on a new Jewish enclave in Arab East Jerusalem.
US sources confirmed the Haaretz report that Washington in February had compiled a study detailing the extent of vacancies.
Israel Radio suggested that the leak of the report appeared timed to coincide with Israel's refusal - in meetings with the Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, and a US Middle East envoy - to bow to US pressure to, curb Jewish settlement construction.
After Mr Netanyahu left the small, dust-choked enclave of Fatzael, one settler said of the US report: "This is just more American propaganda. How would they know how many empty apartments there are?"
A US source who refused to be identified declined to either confirm or deny that the leak was timed to put pressure on Israel.
The PLO said last week that the United States had abandoned its long-held opposition to settlements as "obstacles to peace".
Haaretz said the US report, compiled partly with satellite observation data, showed that 26 per cent of the flats in the West Bank were vacant. It added that the figure in Gaza stood at 56 per cent and at 28 per cent on the Golan Heights.
It quoted an unidentified senior US official as having said this week: "There is no need for expanding settlements, because all the settlers can be housed in existing housing in existing settlements.
"The whole idea of expanding settlements is intended to mollify the prime minister's coalition partners, like the National Religious Party (NRP)."
The West Bank is home to some 130,000 Jews living in settlements among two million Palestinians in the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.