Israel has started compensation talks with Jewish settlers ready to leave the West Bank and Gaza Strip, their lawyer said, as part of an evacuation plan that has fueled a Palestinian power struggle.
With the Israeli pullout plan moving forward, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia began asserting his authority over a branch of the security forces Wednesday, a concession he won from Palestinian President Yasser Arafat after a 10-day standoff that paralyzed the Palestinian leadership.
US and Israeli leaders -- and many Palestinians -- have voiced skepticism that the deal struck on Tuesday was the last word in the tussle between Arafat and a corps of politicians and young militants bridling under his dictatorial rule.
PHOTO: AFP
Political tensions among the Palestinians were heightened by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw the army and all Jewish settlers from Gaza by next September. Israeli Justice Ministry officials held their first meeting with a lawyer representing 90 families living in the Gaza settlements and four in the West Bank, also slated for evacuation, over compensation for voluntarily leaving their homes.
The lawyer, Joseph Tamir, said advance payments could be made as early as this October, though it was unclear how much money the settlers would receive or when they would have to move.
"They were playing their cards very close to the chest," Tamir said, "but an advance that does not reflect the ability to buy a new home is not realistic."
Nearly all the families moved to the settlements for economic reasons rather than an ideological commitment, Tamir said. Ideologues among the settlers threaten to resist evacuation, charging that giving up a few settlements means abandoning parts of the God-given Jewish homeland and would endanger Israel's security.
Sharon says, however, the unilateral withdrawal of civilians and the military from Gaza would reduce friction and end rule over more than 1 million Palestinians. He also has said it would help entrench Israel in the West Bank, to which he attaches a higher priority.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that soldiers discovered a Palestinian tunnel near one of the isolated Gaza settlements, Netzar-im, near Gaza City. The military said the tunnel was to be used for smuggling weapons for an attack.
Early yesterday, Israeli forces entered the Rafah Palestinian, `stroyed at least 18 abandoned buildings. Israeli military sources said the soldiers were searching for arms tunnels, and the empty structures were used by militants as cover for attacks on Israeli forces.
Elsewhere in Gaza yesterday, two Palestinians were killed when an explosive device they were carrying exploded near Khan Younis, Israeli military sources said. The sources said the Israeli army was not involved in the incident.
Also yesterday, an armed Palestinian man was killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Israel Army Radio reported.
A military spokesman said soldiers were arresting Palestinian suspects in the area when gunmen opened fire on them. The spokeswoman said the soldiers returned fire and that one of the attackers was hit. In another incident yesterday, two homemade Palestinian rockets landed in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, a military spokesman said.
Israeli rescue services said five residents were treated for shock.
The rockets were launched six weeks after the Israeli army began an open-ended operation in the northern Gaza Strip to locate and destroy rocket launchers.
Israel's unilateral pullout plan has contributed to the Palestinian power struggle, with rival groups jockeying for position to control the poverty-stricken seaside strip after Israel leaves.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
US President Donald Trump on Friday said Washington was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters, prompting Tehran to warn that intervention would destabilize the region. Protesters and security forces on Thursday clashed in several Iranian cities, with six people reported killed, the first deaths since the unrest escalated. Shopkeepers in Tehran on Sunday last week went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread into a protest movement that has swept into other parts of the country. If Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
RSS