BETHLEHEM. West Bank. Nov 10: The Israeli Army confiscated Palestinian land Monday. Palestinian witnesses said, apparently to build a bypass road for Israeli settlers in the area, reports AFP.

The soldiers bulldozed the land south of the West Bank town of Bethlehem, destroying olive trees and vines, the witnesses said.

Ahmed Tibi, advisor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, criticised the "continuation of the settlement policy which constitutes a violation of the Wye Plantation Accord" signed last month in Washington.

"It must be clear, that the Palestinians will respect their commitments but they will do everything to prevent the confiscation of their land." he said in a statement.

Tibi also called for the United States to press Israel to refrain from "taking unilateral measures."

AP adds: Settler leaders, acknowledged for the first time Thursday that those taking land were not acting on their own, but as part of an organised campaign.

"These are lands that belong to us. by contract. If we don't grab them, someone else will, so we re grabbing them," said Aharon Domb, leader of the Jewish settlement movement.

Evidence of the settlers' last-minute push is evident on hilltops down the middle ridge of the West Bank. Every few kilometers. water towers stick up from the landscape on spidery legs, with a few blocklike houses surrounding them like flies caught in a web. Those are instant settlements like Givat Harel.

This is the West Bank heartland. far from Israeli cities, and the focus of the settlers' land claim.

The hill-hopping has prompted new friction between the government of Prime Min-

ister Benjamin Netanyahu and the United States.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told Netanyahu in a phone call last week that expansion of settlements now is a "provocation." the newspaper Maariv said Monday. Israel denied it. •

US Embassy spokesman Larry Schwartz said he could not comment on the Netanyahu-Albright conversation, but that Israelis and Palestinian undertook, during last month's Mideast summit, to refrain from unilateral actions that might prejudice the outcome of a permanent peace agreement.

He said he hoped Israel’s government would realise that ijew settler outposts are "not appropriate.” and would dismantle them.

Netanyahu’s senior adviser. David Bar-Illan. said that the settlement activity "may be an irritant, but certainly is not against the agreement.