Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is expected to announce a three-week delay in the Gaza Strip evacuation early next month, immediately after the Jewish Passover holiday ends, a government official said yesterday on condition of anonymity.
Outgoing military chief Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon said he didn't foresee settlers shooting on soldiers sent to evacuate them, and that he expected quiet to prevail in Gaza after the pullout, at least in the short term.
The withdrawal will be one of the items on the agenda of a meeting between Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. The date of the meeting will be set after the Jewish holiday, Erekat said.
A delay in the evacuation appeared to be a foregone conclusion after Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz on Thursday backed postponing the start of the forcible evacuation of resistant settlers from late July until Aug. 15. The late-July timetable would coincide with a three-week mourning period for the destruction of the biblical Jewish Temples, and though this is an annual observance, it suddenly became an issue earlier this week.
Sharon, who had fended off attempts to stall the dismantling of all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four in the northern West Bank, abruptly consented to consider a postponement, citing the religious sensibilities of the many observant settlers there. Sharon has denied the government is using the religious rationale to cover for the fact that it is ill-prepared to resettle the 9,000 people who are to be evacuated.
Sharon has also dismissed suggestions that the delay is a first step toward scuttling the pullout, which polls say is supported by a large majority of the Israeli public, but has been opposed fiercely by settlers and their hardline supporters in parliament.
Israeli security forces are also afraid some Israeli opponents of the evacuation will turn violent, and they have announced plans to disarm settlers, many of whom carry army-issued semiautomatic rifles or privately owned pistols, ahead of the withdrawal.
A poll for the Yediot Ahronot newspaper published yesterday showed 64 percent of settlers saying they wouldn't resist evacuation.
Four percent said they would physically oppose the forcible evacuation. Forty-nine percent said they would obey soldiers' orders to quit the area, while 39 percent said they would obey rabbis' orders to defy evacuation orders.
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