THE settlers who aimed to claim the whole Land of Israel for Jews had to be dragged by troops from their homes in Gaza 13 months ago amid bitter recriminations.

But now, a year on, 20 families that were thrown out of the Mediterranean beachfront community of Shirat Hayam are set to try again with a controversial new settlement on a West Bank hilltop steeped in Biblical resonance.

The move to Maskiot, above the Jordan Valley, was agreed by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon weeks before he sank into the coma in which he remains.

For the religious families it is his legacy and meshes perfectly with his long-practised strategy to “grab more hills” to settle the land for Jews and deprive Arabs.

“Moving to Maskiot goes some way to repair the damage of our expulsion,” said Avinadav Vitkon, 28, a father of three. “It will restore some normality for us personally and for the nation. We think settling the land is very important.”

The families, some installed temporarily in the nearby settlement of Hemdat, scoured the country from the northern Sea of Galilee to the southern Negev desert to find somewhere to build.

They settled on Maskiot, in the occupied West Bank, with the backing of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, and battled for permission to go ahead even as the war in Lebanon raged.

The Israeli Peace Now settlement monitoring group said this week that settlers used the war against Hezbollah as cover to expand 31 illegal outposts. The West Bank’s Jewish population has grown 3 per cent in the first six months of the year.

Maskiot already has a few mobile homes, housing 35 religious students preparing for compulsory military service. The planned settlement of 40 mobile homes will be grafted initially on to the existing community and built on an adjacent hilltop.

Despite the agreement of Mr Sharon and the support of his successor, Ehud Olmert, the final permit that must be granted by the Israel Defence Ministry has been held up for three months.

“It’s very sensitive because this land lies in the occupied territories,” said Dubi Tal, the head of the regional council.

“We’re at the final hurdle but we’re waiting for Ehud Olmert and [Defence Minister] Amir Peretz to finish the process.”

Even before the initiative by the Shirat Hayam settlers, the regional council had embarked on the lengthy process of turning Maskiot into a new Jewish community.

But then Israel agreed with the US to freeze settlement growth under the defunct “road map” to peace, stalling the move.

Israel declared that any growth within a settlement’s existing boundaries would be legitimate. The regional council deems that the expansion at Maskiot is within generous existing boundaries, even though it is not legally a settlement.

Maskiot was started in 1982 as an army post where soldiers also farmed the land, leading the way for the arrival of Jewish settlers.

It was just as Mr Sharon detailed in his autobiography. “I felt then that in order to secure this part of the country the most important thing was to establish Jewish footholds. Those rocky heights . . . were essential,” he wrote of his time first as an Israeli army planner, then as Agriculture Minister a decade later in 1977.

The plans he made will become reality when settlers at Shirat Hayam build their new community and begin farming at Maskiot.“We built Shirat Hayam,” said Alon Zanbar, 27, a computer programmer. “Now we believe we have the strength to build in Maskiot and make something new. It’s not an easy place and most people couldn’t do it. But it’s vital.”

Yariv Oppenheimer, director of Peace Now, condemned the move, which he said would breach Israeli principles.

“No doubt they will try to pass it off as an expansion of an existing settlement,” he said. “But the existing structures at Maskiot are not technically a ‘settlement’. We totally condemn this.”

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