Netanyahu plans to expand settlement

Israeli prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has struck a secret deal with one of his coalition partners, pledging to expand settlements in a highly-contentious area of the West Bank, army radio said on Wednesday. The agreement is not included in the official coalition deal between Netanyahu's right-wing Likud and the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party of firebrand Avigdor Lieberman but the two men struck the understanding during their coalition talks, the radio said. According to the plan, some 3,000 housing units are to be constructed in the so-called E1 Sector in the occupied West Bank which runs between annexed east Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement. There was no immediate comment on the report from either party. Israel had pledged to freeze the E1 project as part of its commitments under the international roadmap for peace which was launched in 2005 but has made little progress since then. Palestinians bitterly oppose the project as it effectively cuts the occupied West Bank in two, making the creation of a viable Palestinian state highly problematic.