The Prime Minister's Office commissioned the report from Attorney Talia Sasson who had been Director of the Department for Special Projects in the State Attorney's Office.

Sasson, who is now a private lawyer, presented an interim report to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Tuesday and addressed a press conference at the Prime Minister's Office on Wednesday.

Sharon, meanwhile, sent copies of her thick report to his ministers. He said he would raise the matter at the Cabinet Sunday, "to hold a discussion and make a decision regarding the recommendations in the report," his office reported.

Israel has been under international pressure to freeze all settlement activity and to dismantle illegal settlements. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised the issue with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom in Washington Tuesday.

Last month, just before leaving Israel following a one-day visit, Rice told reporters: "Our understanding is that the (Israeli) commitments on the dismantlement of outposts stands. ... It is important that those commitments be honored."

Sasson's report showed how with a wink, a nod, the political echelon's encouragement in some cases, and apparent violations of the law, government and World Zionist Organization officials cooperated with settlers in establishing new illegal sites.

Sasson said she did not know how many such sites were established, or how much they cost.

"I had difficulty obtaining the data I sought, and part of it I have not received," she told reporters. Some people whom she approached decline d to talk to her or refused to answer most of her questions.

The Housing Ministry gave her wrong information, she noted.

Sasson said that according to the figures provided, there are 105 sites that government officials euphemistically call, "unauthorized settlements."

"Unauthorized is illegal," she asserted.

This figure "probably does not reflect the (full) number of outposts out there," Sasson continued. Only 26 of them were established solely on state-owned land. Fifteen were established on privately owned Palestinian land and the rest on lands whose ownership is unclear or mixed, she added.

Establishing sites on privately owned Palestinian land "cannot be authorized, not even retroactively. Those outposts ought to be evacuated and the sooner he better," she asserted.

The practice of establishing "outposts" or "unauthorized settlements" in the West Bank began in the mid-1990s when the then-government of Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the Oslo accords, ordered a settlement freeze.

Since then, Israeli governments were not formally involved in establishing new settlements, and there is no record of formal approval of any new settlement. However, other organizations stepped in acting, at times, under the "inspiration" of the political echelon, and sometimes with its encouragement, Sasson reported.

Settlers and supporters driven by a desire to solidify Jewish presence in the West Bank, "tricked" the authorities. They asked for permission to set up an antenna on a hill, then link it to an electric grid, build a hut for the guard, followed by a road, and finally several caravans arrived. In other instances, planners filed to establish an agricultural farm, a school or a new neighborhood for an existing settlement, a few miles away. Then, when they wanted government funding, they asked to change their sta tus to that of an independent settlement, Sasson reported.

Some government officials cooperated with this system. "I can't say it was organized, but there was some cooperation between officials here and officials there," she said.

The Housing Ministry funded land-clearing projects, new roads, connections to water and electricity and sent in over 400 mobile homes to the occupied territories. At least 90 of those homes reached "unauthorized settlements," Sasson reported.

The ministry's architects and engineers planned some of the illegal sites.

"The department was indifferent to the fact the land ... was sometimes Palestinian," she said. The Housing Ministry said it "did not know" lands were Palestinian-owned.

"There is no argument it did not try to check," she added.

Financial data the Housing Ministry had given her was wrong and the Housing Ministry admitted it s mistake, she reported.

The Defense Ministry's Civil Administration, that is responsible for civilian matters in the occupied territories, sometimes provided privately owned Palestinian land for new settlements. Sasson attributed that to "faulty copying of markings ... made on maps more than 20 years ago."

Aerial photography designed to spot illegal construction stopped four years ago for security reasons, was resumed recently, but the pace was unsatisfactory. Hence, the Defense Ministry, did not know what was going on.

In an attempt to prevent settlement at new illegal sites, written governmental permission was required for moving mobile homes in the West Bank. Soldiers accompanied those homes to verify they reach the approved site.

However, those were homes on wheels. When the soldiers left, the mobile homes were taken elsewhere. Sasson checked 111 such mobile homes and found that 70 did not reac h their targets. Some were spotted in "unauthorized settlements."

Sasson particularly criticized the defense minister's settlement adviser who, she said, authorized the movement of caravans and issued letters confirming illegal sites were "independent" and thus qualified for government funding.

The attorney general should consider legal action against that adviser and Housing Ministry officials, she said.

Sasson also criticized the policy whereby Israelis are protected wherever they are in the West Bank.

Because of that policy, soldiers were assigned to protect illegal settlements. Their presence at the settlement sites and protection of, "those law breakers (helped) establish facts on the ground. ... Instead of evacuating them, it protects them," Sasson noted.

The authorities have not executed thousands of orders to demolish illegal structures. Eighty-one outposts have been evacuat ed, but only few of them had been inhabited. In some instances, the residents returned or established a new site nearby.

Six outposts can be evacuated immediately since the legal procedures have been completed, Sasson said.

It is not clear how much of the blame reaches the ministerial level, especially Sharon himself who was a master at finding ways to establish new sites.

Peace Now's settlement monitor, Dror Etkes, told United Press International the faults "reach the prime minister's level. I have no doubt of it."

The Haaretz newspaper Wednesday published the picture of a letter the former director-general of the Prime Minister's Office, Avigdor Yitzhaki, had sent in an attempt to "launder" new settlements.

Sasson dodged the questions about Sharon's possible complicity, saying she did not have time to complete her study, and her newest report was an interim one.

Former Housing Minister Effie Eitam, argued Sharon himself urged people to "build and strengthen (settlements). The fact is that until today he hasn't removed even one so-called illegal outpost."

The spokeswoman for the West Bank and Gaza Strip settlers' council, Emily Amrussi, told UPI the report taught them "nothing new."

Israeli governments wanted the settlements because they were "a security need," she said.

"The unnormal situation has been occurring in recent months when they (the government) halted settlement in the land of Israel," she argued.

However, human rights groups have been documenting and raising the issue of settlement expansion for decades.

According to the Israeli Btselem organization's Web site: "Since 1967, Israel has established in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip 152 settlements that have been recognized by the Interior Minis try. In addition, dozens of outposts of varying size have been established. Some of these outposts are settlements for all intents and purposes, but the Interior Ministry has not recognized them as such. ...

"As part of the regime, Israel has stolen thousands of dunams of land from the Palestinians, on which it established dozens of settlements in which hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians now live.

"Israel forbids Palestinians to enter and use these lands, and use the settlements to justify numerous violations of Palestinian rights, such as the right to housing, to gain a living, and freedom of movement. The sharp change changes Israel made to the map of the West Bank makes a viable Palestinian state impossible as part of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination."

Wednesday the new Housing Minister Yitzhak Herzog, of the dovish Labor Party, promised to tackle the shortcomings that have officially surfaced.

Sasson's report presents "a gloomy picture of how a state that is supposed to act properly behaves like a Third World state at best," Herzog said.

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