RAMALLAH/JERICHO: Attempts to convince Israel to stop building settlements as a prelude to reviving stalled peace talks have failed, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Tuesday.

“Quartet attempts to create an atmosphere suitable to relaunch negotiations and convince Israel to stop building in settlements have failed,” Erakat told AFP after Israel said it was poised to announce tenders to build 800 new homes in East Jerusalem.

Envoys from the international peacemaking Quartet held separate meetings with Israeli and Palestinians officials Monday but made no visible headway.

After the talks, Israel said it was extending a freeze on the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority while the Palestinians restated their demand for a halt to Jewish settlements before talks can resume.

Israel’s Housing Ministry said Tuesday it was to invite tenders for the construction of 749 homes in Har Homa neighborhood and another 65 in Pisgat Zeev, both settlements in Occupied East Jerusalem.

“Israel responded to Quartet attempts to relaunch the negotiations and meetings yesterday with a new settlement building declaration in East Jerusalem,” Erakat said.

“It also responded by continuing to withhold PA tax funds which is a robbery and an act of piracy and is a response to Quartet and international efforts,” he added. “We hold the Israeli government solely responsibility for the failure of the peace process and the results that will come from it.”

Under the terms of an economic agreement between the sides signed in Paris in 1994, Israel transfers to the PA tens of millions of dollars each month in customs duties are levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through Israeli ports. The remittances constitute a large percentage of the Palestinian budget.

Further inflaming tensions Tuesday, bulldozers flanked by Israeli troops razed four Palestinian homes near the ancient city of Jericho, with Israel saying they endangered a nearby archeological site.

A spokesman for the department within the Israeli Defense Ministry which administers the occupied West Bank, said the homes were built on government-owned land which was to be used by the nearby settlement of Vered Yericho.

In August, a report by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said that Israeli demolitions in the West Bank rose “alarmingly” in the first half of 2011, with 356 structures demolished in the first six months of this year, compared with 431 for the whole of 2010.

It said 700 people had been displaced by the demolitions in the first six months of 2011, compared with 594 in the whole of 2010, and that demolitions seemed to be concentrated in areas “targeted for settlement expansion.

Israeli-Palestinian talks have been on hold for over a year, grinding to a halt shortly after they began in September 2010 over the issue of settlement construction.

Israel has so far refused to renew a partial 10-month settlement freeze, which expired last year and says it will only talk if there are no pre-conditions.

The Quartet, composed of the U.N., U.S., EU and Russia, is trying to bring the two sides back to the table under a proposal laid out in September after the Palestinians submitted a request for full U.N. state membership.