Jerusalem - Israel plans a housing construction boom in Jewish settlements in the West Bank to cement its hold on occupied land Palestinians want for a state as it prepares for a Gaza pullout, a newspaper said on Friday.

The report in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily that 6,391 homes for settlers were slated to be built this year, a sharp increase over 2004, drew a call from the Palestinians for U.S. pressure on Israel to drop any such plan in the interests of peace.

Statistics on the Web site of the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), whose 2005 construction plan was cited by Yedioth Ahronoth, showed the government agency marketed 1,783 new housing units in the West Bank in 2004 and 1,225 in 2003.

An ILA spokesman was unavailable for comment. Responding to the report, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's office said in a terse statement he had approved building permits for "a limited number of housing units" in settlement blocs.

The statement gave no figures.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the construction would violate a U.S.-backed peace "road map" that calls on Israel to cease all "settlement activity" on territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

"We urge personal and direct intervention by President Bush to make sure such a plan will not be implemented," Erekat told Reuters.

The election of Mahmoud Abbas last month as Palestinian president and a ceasefire he and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared at a Feb. 8 summit in Egypt have raised hopes of reviving the road map after four years of bloodshed.

In recent violence, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man who was spotted trying to infiltrate into Israel from Gaza. A military source said he was unarmed and Palestinian security sources said he had tried to enter Israeli illegally to work.

Palestinian leaders have also warmed to an Israeli evacuation of all 21 Jewish settlements from Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank due to start on July 20. But they note Sharon pledged to keep big West Bank settlement blocs forever.

"As for the major clusters, don't expect us to stop construction there. In any future agreement, Israel will retain them," a government official said, citing a need to accommodate the "natural growth" of their populations.

About 225,000 Israelis live in 120 settlements in the West Bank. The international community views settlements as illegal. Israel disputes this.

Under the ILA plan, a third of the new Israeli homes in existing Jewish enclaves in the West Bank this year would be built just outside Jerusalem in Maaleh Adumim, Israel's largest settlement and home to 30,000, Yedioth Ahronoth said.

The newspaper, Israel's biggest, also said the government intended to approve retroactively about 200 settlement outposts erected without its authorization in the West Bank, but Mofaz's office denied this.

"The defense minister has made it clear on numerous occasions that all the unauthorized outposts will be removed, and that will be the case," his office said.

In a new development in the Gaza pullout plan, security officials said Mofaz intends to speed up the pace of evacuation this summer in a bid to avoid lengthy confrontations with settlers who refuse to leave.

Mofaz now aims to complete the withdrawal in four weeks instead of seven, the officials said.

A shorter time period, they said, could also fit into Israel's plans to try to sell settlement structures and assets, such as greenhouses, to international investors or bodies rather than demolish them.

Israeli forces will bar Palestinians from evacuated settlements until the last one is empty and leaving greenhouses untended for long would decrease their value and make it harder for Palestinian farmers to raise a crop, the officials said.