Israel is considering moving settlers slated for evacuation from Gaza to expanded West Bank enclaves despite US objections to the Jewish state cementing a hold on occupied land, security sources said yesterday.
The daily Maariv said Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered plans drawn up for hundreds of new homes at the Gush Etzion bloc for use by 7,500 Gaza settlers who are to be evacuated under a plan to "disengage" from conflict with the Palestinians.
Mofaz's office did not immediately comment on the report. A senior Israeli security source confirmed the Gush Etzion idea was "being studied," but said it had not yet received approval.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Tightening its West Bank grip as part of the Gaza pullback scheduled for next year might put Israel at odds with key ally the US, whose "road map" peace plan, now tattered by three-and-a-half years of fighting, seeks a freeze on settlement building.
But that provision of the plan has been called into question by US President George W. Bush's unprecedented assurance to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in April that Israel could keep some West Bank land where some major settlement blocs lie.
"The US administration supports the road map," a US official said in response to the Maariv report. "Exactly what constitutes a settlement freeze is a matter of discussion."
The Palestinians, who want the West Bank along with Gaza -- occupied by Israel since 1967 -- for a viable independent state envisaged by the road map, cried foul.
"The whole idea was to turn a Gaza withdrawal into an opportunity [for peace]," Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat said. "If Mr. Mofaz takes settlers from Gaza to the West Bank, that would kill the idea."
On Monday, Israel issued orders to confiscate further tracts of West Bank land for a new segment of a barrier it says keeps out suicide bombers. Palestinians accuse Sharon of carving up the West Bank for eventual annexations by Israel.
Israel killed two wanted Palestinian militants in a West Bank air strike on Monday, hours after taking steps to ease movement of Palestinian inhabitants there -- something the US has long demanded.
The latest West Bank actions drew censure from Israeli opposition leader Shimon Peres, whose Labor Party could join Sharon's ruling Likud in a broad coalition that would bolster him against ultra-rightists in his camp opposed to withdrawals.
"While busying themselves with just talking about Gaza, they [the Sharon government] are busy taking action in Judea and Samaria [West Bank]," Peres told Israel Radio. "I'm talking about the construction, expansion, statements and [intended] annexations."
"The current government under Likud committed itself to the road map," Peres added. "So what do we want? How much can the people of Israel be confused?"
On Monday, Labor sat out no-confidence motions that Sharon, stripped of his parliamentary majority by recent right-wing rebellions, might otherwise have not survived. "We do not want to be those who ruin the disengagement plan," Peres said.
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
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
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
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