GAZA (Reuters) -- Palestinian officials discounted on Saturday a report that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plans to remove some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a "public relations move".

Israel's Channel 2 television said on Friday that Sharon plans to remove some Jewish settlements by the summer of 2004 to make way for a Palestinian state. Israeli officials refused to comment on the Channel 2 report, but a source in Sharon's office said in response: "There is such talk, but for now it only concerns settlements in Gaza. A lot could happen by next summer."

Palestinian officials were skeptical.

"We'll believe it when we see it," Palestinian Labor Minister Ghassan el-Khatib told Reuters.

"Such Israeli declarations are public relations moves because genuine moves are through the implementation of the roadmap," Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said.

The United States is the chief sponsor of a Mideast peace plan known as the "roadmap", which calls on Israel to withdraw from occupied territory and on Palestinians to rein in militants ahead of the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005.

The Channel 2 report came shortly after Israeli political sources said Sharon was planning a package of conciliatory moves toward Palestinians to quell domestic dissent over his hardline policies and bolster new Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie.

A Sharon confidant said steps might include "humanitarian" easing of Israel's military blockade of Palestinian areas, an army pullback from one or more West Bank cities and renewed dismantling of unauthorized Jewish settler outposts. Sharon -- who has insisted tough measures are needed in Palestinian areas to stop suicide bombers -- hinted at his new plan on Thursday when he told a business conference in Tel Aviv: "We do not rule out unilateral steps (toward the Palestinians)."

Removing Jewish settlements would mark the most significant Israeli step toward implementing the roadmap. It would also break from Sharon's traditionally unswerving support for settlements in the occupied territories.

Sharon and Qurie are expected to meet as early as next week for the first time since the new Palestinian government was installed on November 12.

Qurie hopes to win Israeli agreement to a truce and move beyond a unilateral ceasefire that militants declared in June and which collapsed in a spate of violence two months later.