Palestinians say Israel grab threatens seas project

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The Palestinian Authority said Wednesday it would ask the World Bank to stop funding studies for a Dead Sea-Red Sea water project if Israel did not withdraw plans to confiscate West Bank land.

Israel last month disclosed a plan to expropriate large tracts of land between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, some of it areas exposed by the lake's receding water level over the past 30 years.

Publication of formal notices in the Palestinian press triggered an angry reaction from the Palestinian Authority, which denounced it as a grab for 35,000 acres of their land -- equivalent to 2 percent of the occupied West Bank.

If it goes ahead, the confiscation will separate the northern West Bank from the south, Palestinians say, ultimately denying them a viable state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as endorsed by major world powers.

"If Israel does not halt this plan, the Palestinian National Authority will ask the World Bank to stop the two-seas project, linking the Red Sea with the Dead Sea," said a cabinet statement issued by Western-backed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's office.

In March, the World Bank commissioned two feasibility studies for a project to save the Dead Sea by replenishing it with Red Sea water via a tunnel through the Jordanian desert, for the benefit of Jordan, Israel and Palestinian Authority.

The Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance project would supply the biggest desalination plant in the world, running on its own hydro-electric power.

A decision on whether to go ahead could come by the end of next year and the likely cost would be in the region of $7 billion.

Palestinians have been lobbying Washington to pressure Israel to halt land seizures and settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

Fayyad's statement said the aim of the new expropriation was to "kill the chance of creating a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity."

The Palestinians would seek the intervention of U.N. Security Council and the World Court "in order to prevent Israel as an occupying state from confiscating the lands."

(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Matthew Jones)