The leader of Hamas has reacted with fury to the plans outlined by Israel's acting prime minister to unilaterally redraw Israel's borders on the West Bank by 2010.

Khaled Mashal described the ideas for an imposed solution in the occupied territories with no negotiation with the Palestinians as tantamount to a "declaration of war".

Mr Olmert says, in interviews published in several major Israeli newspapers today, that he wants to impose a border in the West Bank, build a wall and move many Jewish settlers to the Israeli side - all with backing from the international community.

While the plan would involve uprooting some Jewish settlements, it also would retain portions of the West Bank and strengthen the main settlements in those areas. Israel also would retain control over Jerusalem and link a large settlement to the city.

The plan falls well short of the Palestinians' claims - supported by the United Nations - to be restored to all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, from which they were driven after the 1967 Middle East war.

"This is not a peace plan, but a war declaration, which will permit Israel to stay in the largest section of the West Bank, to maintain their wall and settlements, to refuse all concessions on Jerusalem and to reject the Palestinians’ right of return," said Mr Mashal. His party is in the process of forming a government of the Palestinian Authority after winning parliamentary elections in January.

"It is a unilateral disengagement by Israel in the interest of its security needs and not the demands of peace," said Mashal. "Olmert is in the process of committing the same errors toward the Palestinians that (Ariel) Sharon did."

For his part, Mr Olmert says today that he still hopes to reach a settlement with the Palestinians, but the chances of a deal have dimmed with Hamas’s victory.

Israel says that it will deal with the militant group only if it renounces violence and its calls for destruction of the Jewish state. Hamas has repeatedly rejected such demands.

Mr Olmert has also threatened to assassinate the incoming Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniya, if he is involved in terrorism. "Anyone who is involved in planning terror attacks will be a legitimate target for liquidation," he told the Yediot Ahronot daily.

If the Palestinians "prefer to be dragged into the axis of evil of Iran", then Israel will draw its own border in the West Bank based on its security needs, he added.

"At the end of the process we will reach a complete separation from the vast majority of the Palestinian population," he told the Maariv daily.

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