Jerusalem  - Israel has been fencing off Jewish settlements located to the east of its controversial West Bank security barrier, to create buffer zones which are blocking Palestinian access to thousands of acres of lands, a rights group said Thursday.

The rings of land around the Jewish settlements are cordoned off by fences or other physical obstacles, the Israeli B'Tselem organization said.

They are erected either independently by settlers, or by the Israeli military as part of the "Special Security Area" plan, meant to provide protection to settlements from attacks and infiltrations by Palestinian militants.

As part of this plan, Israel has fenced off 12 of the about 70 Jewish settlements located to the east of its West Bank barrier.

The fenced-off areas mean an unofficial annexation of more than 4,500 dunams of land, about 4.5 square kilometres, and increasing the overall area of these settlements by some 2.4 per cent, B'Tselem said.

Settlers have themselves marked off more land around other settlements to the east of the barrier, amounting to tens of thousands of dunams.

The Israeli military was not involved in creating these buffer zones, but according to B'Tselem, the Israeli authorities are turning a blind eye to these unlicensed acts, systematically avoiding their duty to enforce the law on the settlers.

Israel says the "warning spaces" around the settlements to help protect the settlers, saying that at the height of the current Palestinian uprising between 2002-2004, Palestinian militants killed 31 Israeli civilians in settlements in the West Band and wounded many others.

But B'Tselem said it had documentation of settlers actually living on and tending to the closed-off land.

"This contradicts the security logic cited by the army," it said in a statement published Thursday.

"The closing of land around settlements primarily harms Palestinian farmers," it said, adding many were forced to stop cultivating the land that falls within the buffer zones.

Calling on Israel to evacuate settlers from the West Bank, B'Tselem said this was "the only lawful way" to protect them. (dpa)