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.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
RSS