A new settlement in the West Bank, to be known as Shima, will be inaugurated officially on Tuesday. It is the first settlement to be consecrated since the Palestinian uprising began seven months ago.
The settlement will be built on what is presently a Nahal or paramilitary agricultural outpost south of Mount Hebron.
Defense Ministry sources said it will be the last settlement built in the administered territories before the Knesset elections on Nov. 1.
Shima will replace Assael, one of six settlements the Labor-Likud national unity government agreed to build in the West Bank when it took office in 1984.
The Assael project was abandoned because of Palestinian claims to some of the land on which it was to be built.
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