Israel will encourage Jewish settlers in Gaza to leave their homes in exchange for compensation as early as this summer -- months before a Cabinet vote to approve evacuation of the settlements, according to a government document.
The government timetable, presented on Wednesday to the committee overseeing the pullout, calls for completion of the process by Sept. 30, 2005, or three months ahead of the original target date.
Settlers who refuse to leave by Sept. 1, 2005, will be forced out of their homes by the middle of the month, according to the document.
PHOTO: AP
The document was a sign of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's determination to go ahead with the pullout, despite opposition from hard-liners who this week deprived him of his parliamentary majority and threatened to bring him down.
Also, some Cabinet opponents were won over by his pledge to bring the four stages of settlement evacuation before separate votes, but the timetable means that the votes would be meaningless.
According to the plan, 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank would be evacuated by Sept. 15, 2005, and the army would pull out of Gaza by the end of that month. The process would begin with voluntary exit by settlers, beginning in August this year, in exchange for compensation.
In Washington, Sharon adviser Zalman Shoval said the houses at the settlements would be destroyed, but the public buildings would remain.
He told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a private research group, that many Israelis did not want to see Palestinian flags flying from homes once occupied by Israeli Jews.
The Cabinet approved the withdrawal plan on Sunday, the first time Israel has decided in principle to remove veteran settlements from the West Bank or Gaza.
The timetable for evacuation of the 7,500 Jewish settlers and the military was put together by Israel's National Security Council.
The Sept. 30, 2005 date for completing the full withdrawal is three months ahead of the target date Sharon has mentioned. In a speech on Wednesday, he repeated his goal of ending Israel's presence in Gaza.
"Israel made a decision this week crucial to its future, a decision on the disengagement plan that will be completed by the end of 2005," he said.
Though Cabinet skeptics insisted that their vote in favor of Sharon's "unilateral disengagement" plan did not include approval of actual evacuation of settlements, the document shows that starting in November, compensation would be paid to settlers who leave their homes voluntarily in an exodus that would begin three months earlier.
The timetable mentions a Cabinet vote in February, 2005 approving evacuation of settlements, but the process would be in motion months before then. The timetable was presented at the committee meeting as an approved schedule, but it could face alterations if opposition surfaces.
Israeli officials said Wednesday's meeting reflected the prime minister's determination to push forward with his plan.
"He is as determined as can be," said the senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Following the Cabinet vote, he said, the plan is "irrevocable."
The voluntary settler-evacuation period would continue until July 2005.
Entry into the settlements would be banned after Aug. 14, 2005, to stop thousands of people from going to protest or block the pullout.
Evacuation "by force" of settlers who refuse to leave on their own would begin on Sept. 1, 2005, to be completed by Sept. 15, 2005.
The second section of the timetable calls for negotiating with international organizations about issues like transferring property. The target date is October 2004.
The third section orders the military to begin preparing its withdrawal in July 2004, pulling out of Gaza between Sept. 15 2005 and Sept. 30, 2005, just after the final evacuation of the settlements.
In Gaza violence on Wednesday, a Hamas militant was killed as Israeli troops moved into Palestinian areas, surrounded a house and flattened farmland, Palestinian officials said.
Palestinian militants fired a rocket at an Israeli town from the area on Tuesday.
The military said soldiers returned fire after an anti-tank missile was fired at them.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS