Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Israel denied on Thursday that it is setting up a new settlement to house families evicted from their homes when its military forces unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005 and said that the settlement has been there for 25 years.

Earlier this week, Israel Defense Minister Amir Peretz authorized the building of 30 new homes in Maskiot, a settlement in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank, to house families mostly from the former settlement of Shirat HaYam.

Most of the more than 8,000 Israelis who were removed from their communities in the Gaza Strip and West Bank are now staying in temporary homes inside Israel, where they plan to build permanent communities.

The issue of settlements is one of the thorniest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinians want to establish a state in all of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, with Jerusalem as the capital. Some, like Hamas, are fighting to include all of Israel in a future Palestinian Islamic state.

Israel considers the West Bank part of its eternal inheritance described in the Bible as Judea and Samaria, but the government has in principle agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state there, though it said it intends to hold onto certain large settlement areas close to Israel in any final deal with the Palestinians.

Saeb Erekat, head of the Palestinian Authority negotiations, condemned that decision and said it would destroy "the atmosphere" created by the meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and P.A. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday.

U.S. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said that building a new settlement would violate Israel's obligations in the "road map" peace plan.

Gallegos said Washington was calling on Israel to honor its road map obligations and "avoid taking steps that could be viewed as predetermining the outcome of future negotiations."

But Olmert spokeswoman Miri Eisen said that Maskiot had been around for 25 years.

It was approved by the government and established in 1981, Eisen told Cybercast News Service.

Maskiot was established by a special army unit called Nahal that combines military service with building "settlements." Many such settlements are communities inside Israel proper today.

Nahal units would build the settlements and keep them until civilians inhabited them, one source said.

Although it was in continuous use, Maskiot never really took hold. It was used by the army for a number of years and most recently by a private academy that specialized in pre-army military training for Israeli youth. Teachers at the academy lived in the settlement with their families. The academy had no official ties to the army.

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