RAMALLAH, West Bank, 5 December 2007 — The Israeli Civil Administration carried out only three percent of its own demolition orders for illegal construction in West Bank settlements over the past ten years, a new report by the anti-settlement Israeli watchdog Peace Now stated yesterday.

According to the report, from 1997-2007 the Civil Administration, an army body which coordinates the civil activities of Israeli government in the West Bank, issued 3,449 demolition orders for illegally built structures in the settlements and settlement outposts, but evacuated and demolished only 107 of them.

Peace Now said that the report was based on statistics provided by the Civil Administration, after the movement petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice on the basis of the Freedom of Information Law. The report came days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed during the Annapolis conference held last week to start direct negotiations in bid to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008.

The two leaders recommitted themselves to the US-baked Road Map peace plan, founded in 2003. The plan lays out a three-stage program for establishing a Palestinian state, and states that in the first stage, the Palestinian Authority must wage war on armed groups and reform PA institutions, and requires Israel to freeze all settlement activity, including “natural growth,” and evacuate all settlement outposts set up after March 2001.

Meanwhile, Israeli Education Minister Yuli Tamir said yesterday that he “was shocked an appalled” about the segregation of four Ethiopian pupils in an Israeli elementary school in Petah Tikva.”

“This is blatant racism,” said Tamir, promising that if allegations proved accurate, the ministry would “act severely.” The placement of the four Ethiopian girls in a separate class from their peers at the school was first reported by the daily Yediot Ahronot. According to the Israeli religious school “Lamerhav” principal, Rabbi Yeshiyahu Granevich, complete integration of the girls was impossible.

The reason being, according to municipal workers, was that the students were not observant enough, and their families did not belong to the Religious Zionist Movement as do all of the students at the school. Among the differences in the daily school life of the girls, a single teacher was responsible to teach them all of their subjects.