The government has told Gaza Strip settlers they could move en masse to an environmentally sensitive area in southern Israel, a senior Cabinet minister said yesterday.
Settler representatives who met with government officials Monday night were told the government would build up to four new towns for them if they move to the Nitzanim area on the southern Israeli coast, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said.
"The government clarified what it is willing to promise the settlers who fear -- and possibly with some justification -- that on the day after [the pullout], no one will have an interest in advancing a [resettlement] plan, and therefore we promised to guarantee legislation and fast-track planning,'' Livni told Israel Radio.
The ball is now in the settlers' court, Livni said.
"We just asked to know within a few days whether they are interested in moving ahead on this because if they are, then the government already has to erect trailers immediately," she said.
The government served notice more than a year ago that it would dismantle all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four small communities in the northern West Bank this summer, which are home to 9,000 Israelis. But settlers have refused to make alternative housing and employment plans, seeing that as capitulation to an evacuation program they deplore.
Yitzhak Meron, a lawyer representing settlers, told Israel Army Radio it wasn't clear settlers would accept the Nitzanim project.
"A large number of people aren't able to make a decision right now," Meron said.
Environmentalists have objected to the Nitzanim project, afraid new towns in the area would destroy natural sand dunes.
Livni insisted the plan would not create an environmental hazard.
"No one plans to put the settlers on the dunes," she told Israel Army Radio.
The Nitzanim project was advanced because it gives settlers the opportunity to move as a community, she said.
"If group relocation can make resettlement easier, then it is our obligation to do it," she said, adding that "it is clear" to settlers that the government won't increase the amount of compensation it has promised evacuees.
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
POINTING FINGERS: The two countries have accused each other of firing first, with Bangkok accusing Phnom Penh of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital Thai acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai yesterday warned that cross-border clashes with Cambodia that have uprooted more than 130,000 people “could develop into war,” as the countries traded deadly strikes for a second day. A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, and the UN Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis yesterday. A steady thump of artillery strikes could be heard from the Cambodian side of the border, where the province of Oddar Meanchey reported that one civilian — a 70-year-old man — had been killed and
RSS