Israeli doves launch online game

The aim of the game is to remove all of the settlements

An Israeli anti-settlement group has designed an online game to highlight what it sees as the problem of Jewish settlers colonising Palestinian land.

Called Wild West Bank, players must try to dismantle all the Jewish settlements that continually spring up.

The Back to Israel group says it wants to show that despite the government's withdrawal from Gaza, settlement building continues in the West Bank.

Organisers say more than 45,000 people have downloaded the game in four days.

In the game, the player acts as a sheriff tasked with dismantling illegal settlement outposts before they get turned into fully-fledged settlements ringed by Israeli soldiers.

As soldiers are taken away from the occupied territories, they greet their return to Israel with a "yeah". But as more and more settlements and roads appear, the Palestinians who populate the playing area become boxed in.

At the end of play, a message reads: "Thousands of Israelis and Palestinianians have lost their lives as a result of the occupation. The occupation is not a game."

Fierce opposition

"At the moment it is very hard to speak about the occupation, about what is going on in the West Bank when all attention is on Gaza," Arik Diamant, one of the game's developers, told the BBC News website.

"We wanted to raise awareness of the construction that continues every day in the West Bank.

"If we are not vigilant we will find ourselves with more settlements in the West Bank after disengagement than before. If that happens, then it is only a question of time before there's a resurgence in the violence."

The Back to Israel group - made up of a coalition of dovish organisations - is planning to hold a Day Against the Occupation on 17 June.

They want to urge Israelis to back the dismantling of all settlements in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Israeli government has faced fierce opposition, particularly from settlers, over its plans to evacuate all 21 settlements from the Gaza Strip and four from the West Bank in the coming weeks.

Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the 1967 war. Its settlement building in the territories is viewed as illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.