Israeli children playing in the Neve Dekalim settlement
Photo: Gadi Kavlo
A map showing the Gush Katif settlement bloc
Arab offers to buy Gaza settlements
Channel 2 TV reports billionaire Mahmoud al-Abar met with Prime Minister Sharon
JERUSALEM - An Arab billionaire met Thursday with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and offered to buy the settlements Israel plans to evacuate in the Gaza Strip in the summer, Channel Two TV reported.
The report identified the Arab as Mahmoud al-Abar who owns the Emar construction company, said to be worth USD7 billion.
Ephraim Sneh, a Knesset Member from the Labor Party, told the television station that he initiated the contact.
"Involvement of this company ... gives Israel the option not to destroy the buildings."
The businessman would pay US$56 million for greenhouses, 12 factories, 2,000 housing units and 20 wells, the report said.
Sneh said no decision has been made.
Debate over whether to destroy the settlements
Ido Hartuv, Sneh's spokesman, said no other merchants were approached. He said al-Abar met with Ilan Cohen, director of Sharon's office, and Hartuv described the meeting as positive. Sharon's office would say only that there was a meeting with foreign visitors.
The government plans to evacuate all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank in the summer. The Knesset gave final approval to the plan on Wednesday. No decision has been made about what to do with the buildings in the settlements after the pullout, though many favor destroying the houses while leaving the public structures intact.
Hartuv said the approach was made possible by the outcome of last week's summit in Egypt, where Israeli and the Palestinians declared an end to more than four years of bloodshed.
