Last update - 14:35 31/05/2009

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent and News Agencies

Senior members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet reiterated Sunday that the government has rejected a U.S. demand to halt all activity in West Bank settlements, despite strongly-worded demands from the Obama administration to do so.

"I want to make it clear that the current Israeli government will not accept in any way the freezing of legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria [West Bank," Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz told Army Radio.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Eli Yishai of Shas told his fellow cabinet ministers Sunday that the U.S. demand on settlement activity was tantamount to "expulsion."

President Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, have both made very public calls for Israel to institute a total freeze on construction in all West Bank settlements. Tensions between Washington and Jerusalem have been growing as a result.

Israeli political officials have accused the administration of taking a preferential line toward the Palestinians on this issue.