Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday Israel would need to scrap further West Bank settlements under any final peace deal with Palestinians but would never cede its biggest enclaves in the occupied territory.
He was speaking a week after uprooting Jewish settlers from all 21 enclaves in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank to "disengage" from conflict in occupied territory. US-led mediators see the move as a catalyst for future peacemaking.
"Not all the settlements in Judea and Samaria today will remain... when (we have completed) the last stage of the 'road map'," Mr Sharon said, using biblical names for the West Bank and referring to an internationally backed peace plan.
But he stressed that any such decision would only be part of a permanent peace accord. "Road map" talks are unlikely to start at least until after general elections in Israel and the Palestinian territories due next year.
Mr Sharon did not say how many more settlements might be abandoned. There are some 140 settlements in the West Bank.
Israel removed all 8,500 settlers from Gaza and 500 from the West Bank this month - the first dismantling of Jewish enclaves on some of the land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestininians want for a state.
But Mr Sharon repeated Israel would never give up West Bank settlement blocs where the vast majority of 245,000 settlers live among 2.4 million Palestinians.
"These settlements will remain in our hands and will be linked territorially to Israel. These blocs have first rate strategic importance for Israel," he said.
Palestinians have condemned Israel's continued expansion of major West Bank settlements, fearing this will prejudge the outcome of peace talks and deny them a viable, geographically contiguous state.
Mr Sharon said Israel would not withdraw unilaterally from further territory and any further land handovers would come only as part of a final peace deal.
"I don't see any additional disengagements. The disengagement was a one-off step and I don't see another one," Mr Sharon said on Channel 10 television.
The World Court has ruled Israel's settlements in Gaza and the West Bank are illegal. Israel disputes this.
Palestinians welcomed "disengagement" but want Israel to also cede all of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, also taken in the 1967 war, for their future capital.
Israel says it expects to hand over Gaza settlement areas to Palestinian rule after withdrawing troops from the territory in about mid-September. It intends to maintain a security presence in the northern West Bank.
Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, met Palestinian leaders and militant factions in Gaza yesterday at the start of a mission to ensure its 1.4 million Palestinians can cross its borders more freely after Israeli troops are out.
Greater freedom of movement for Gaza's inhabitants is widely seen as key to boosting the economy of the impoverished coastal strip and bolstering public support for moderate President Mahmoud Abbas and peace moves with Israel.
Israel says its restrictions, mostly condemned internationally, stem from security concerns underscored by militant attacks in a nearly five-year-old Palestinian uprising.
Israel has said it wants to retain over-arching control of access to Gaza, including its sea lanes and air space, but has been discussing with Palestinians ways of easing transit of people and goods to the West Bank and Egypt.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie voiced confidence that the ceasefire Mr Abbas declared with Mr Sharon in February would hold despite a Palestinian suicide bombing on Sunday.