JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel will build an undersea barrier stretching a half-mile off the Gaza Strip to keep potential attackers from swimming to its coast after Israel withdraws troops and settlers from Gaza this summer, military officials said Friday.

Israel believes the barrier is necessary because the military will lose surveillance systems in the planned pullout, military officials said on condition of anonymity because the project had not yet begun.

The barrier’s first 150 yards will consist of cement pilings buried in the sandy bottom, the Jerusalem Post newspaper reported Friday. A 6-foot-tall fence floating beneath the surface will run an additional 800 yards.

Military officials said construction of the underwater barrier would begin soon, but it would not be completed by the Gaza pullout’s scheduled start in mid-August.

A Palestinian official denounced the project Friday, urging Israel to abandon its “mentality of barriers.”

“This is political blindness,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. “The answer to all these woes of security and so on in is a meaningful peace process, is building the bridges with the Palestinians, is ending the occupation.”

Gaza, home to 1.3 million Palestinians, is surrounded by an Israeli fence built to keep back attackers. Israel also is building a barrier to wall off the West Bank.

“I hope the Israeli mentality of barriers will end,” Erekat said. “Now they have land barriers and tomorrow sea barriers and the day after sky barriers and what else? Will they put a barrier around each Palestinian individual or house?”

In another development, Israel said Friday its dispute with the United States over its military technology sales to China would be resolved soon. On Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, due in Israel this weekend, acknowledged a sharp disagreement with Israel over the issue.

“We are attentive to American concerns. The issue will be solved over the next few weeks and we will work out all the points of dispute,” said Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The United States fears Chinese military modernization could upset the security balance in Asia and make it more difficult for the United States to help defend Taiwan from a mainland attack.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing still considers the island part of its territory to be reclaimed by force if necessary.

According to Israeli officials and recent media reports, the United States has imposed a series of sanctions on the Israeli arms industry in recent months because of its sales to China.

U.S. envoys met Friday with officials from Sharon’s office in preparation for Rice’s visit, Gissin said. The envoys, David Welch and Elliot Abrams, also discussed Sharon’s meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, scheduled for Tuesday.

Rice, who arrives Saturday, also will meet with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Abbas told reporters that he and Rice would discuss ways to restart peacemaking. Abbas said he also would restate Palestinian demands that Israel fulfill its obligations under a February truce agreement, including withdrawing from three more West Bank towns.

The withdrawal has stalled over Israeli demands that Palestinian militants disarm.

Separately, a Palestinian government official said Rice and Abbas also were expected to discuss Abbas’ planned meeting with Sharon and coordination between Israel and the Palestinians on the Gaza pullout. Both sides are afraid that without coordination, militants and looters would fill the vacuum Israel leaves behind after 38 years.

Israel hopes the meeting will produce an agreement on what to do with evacuated settler homes, Sharon spokesman Asaf Shariv said. A new proposal would have Israel destroy the homes and the Palestinians clear the rubble in exchange for payment.

Demolishing the homes would spare settlers the sight of seeing Palestinians take over their homes. Having Palestinians clear debris could free Israeli soldiers from having to stay in Gaza for months afterward to clean up, leaving them exposed to possible attack.

The Palestinian Authority has taken no formal position, but many Cabinet ministers planning for the post-Israel era in Gaza want the homes razed.

European Union leaders meeting in Brussels, Belgium, planned to urge Israel to halt all settlement building, and to call on the Palestinian Authority to demonstrate its determination to combat terrorism, according to a draft statement. The text is to be adopted at the EU summit.

Questioning Israeli government policy, Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Friday the Palestinian Authority needs small-caliber weapons to restore law and order and to fight militants.

Israel has blocked the Palestinian Authority from acquiring more guns, saying they would be turned against Israelis as they have been in the past.

“It is not the guns that threaten us, but the suicide bombers,” Peres told Israel Radio.

“Light arms are imperative to restore law and order and to fight Hamas” militants, he said.

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