JERUSALEM -- Israel announced Tuesday that it has legalized three unauthorized Jewish outposts in the West Bank, a move that Palestinians and anti-settlement activists condemned as a step toward creating the first new settlements in more than a decade.

The decision marked the latest effort by Israel's right-wing coalition government to prevent evictions -- some of them court-ordered -- of Jewish settlers who have established communities without government permission in the West Bank, where Israel occupies land that Palestinians want for a future state.

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JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that his Cabinet has decided to retroactively legalize three West Bank outposts that previous governments had conceded were built without permission, marking the first step toward what critics fear will become Israel's first official new settlements since 1990.

The decision late Monday by a Cabinet committee begins a long administrative process to authorize the small settlements of Rehalim, Sansana and Bruchin.

The move infuriated Palestinians and frustrated the international community, which has been pushing Israel to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank and refrain from taking actions that might hinder efforts to restart peace talks.

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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a worthy and serious partner, and it was certainly possible to reach a peace agreement with him during the past three years, President Shimon Peres told Haaretz.

"I am aware that there are other opinions [about whether Abbas can or wants to make peace], but I don't accept them, and I have a little experience," Peres said during an interview last week in the President's Residence in Jerusalem.

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