Tel Aviv  - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has approved dozens of construction projects in the occupied West Bank over the past months, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.

The vast majority of the projects listed by Ha'aretz are in Jewish settlement blocks which Israel has vowed to keep as part of a future peace deal with the Palestinians.

But some are in isolated settlements located to the east of Israel's West Bank security barrier.

Israel has pledged a freeze in settlement growth as part of its current negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, launched at a summit in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2007.

Shortly after Annapolis, now Israeli Caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered that all construction and planning in West Bank settlements need the specific approval of Defence Minister Barak.

Israel pledged that it would build only within the boundaries of existing settlements, allowing "no outward growth." It also canceled long-established tax breaks and economic incentives which made it financially advantageous for Israelis to buy homes in settlements.

But it refused to accept an absolute freeze in settlement construction and has made no secret of its continued construction on West Bank land which it wants to keep under a future peace deal, especially in those settlement blocks near the informal border, or "green line," separating Israel and the occupied territory, and those in and around Jerusalem.

According to Ha'aretz, the projects approved by Barak included some 315 homes and 32 plots in Beitar Ilit, near the green line south-west of Jerusalem, 48 homes and 19 plots in Ariel, a major settlement town in the northern West Bank, and 40 apartments and a commercial centre in Efrat, south of Bethlehem and east of Beitar Ilit.

Another 60 apartments will be built in Eshkolot, near the green line in the southern-most corner of the West Bank.

Israel also authorized its water company, Mekorot, to prepare plans in Kiryat Arba, a radical settlement near Hebron situated to the east of the West Bank barrier.

The daily listed 10 other settlements where new construction projects were either registered or published. Two of those settlements are located to the east of the West Bank barrier. (dpa)