Settler wants to become Palestinian

"I have met with Palestinians. I am willing to be a test case for peace and take up Palestinian citizenship," Farhan told Reuters. "It will hurt me to give up my Israeli citizenship, but I want to remain here."

One Palestinian official suggested he might be allowed to stay in overcrowded Gaza -- home to 1.4 million Palestinians -- as long as he obeyed Palestinian laws.

Actual citizenship could only be decided on an individual basis and any applicant would have to meet the same conditions as anyone else.

Ordinary Gazans have long viewed the 8,500 settlers in the territory as bitter enemies living on land they want for a state.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plans to give up all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip as well as four of 120 in the West Bank in what he bills "disengagement" from conflict with the Palestinians.

Withdrawals start next month.

Twice dispossessed

Farhan, a Libyan-born Jew who left Tripoli for Israel at the age of three in the wake of the 1948 war at Israel's creation, said seven families were willing to stay in the mostly secular Gaza settlement of Elei Sinai after Israeli troops leave.

Farhan, 59, helped establish Elei Sinai after being forced to leave the Sinai settlement of Yamit in 1982.

"I fled from Tripoli, endured the displacement camps in Israel, and then I was kicked out of Yamit. Today I won't be a refugee again. I have no strength," said Farhan, a restaurant owner.

A senior Israeli official dismissed Farhan's bid as a "gimmick" by settlers trying to save their homes.

"Let's be realistic. They are currently under attack. What will happen to them when we are not there?" the official said.

Palestinian official okay with idea

But a Palestinian official said they would be welcome.

"Unlike Zionism which is religiously exclusive, Palestinian nationalism is not," said Diana Butto. "So if these settlers wish to come in and be subject to Palestinian law, then of course we welcome them."

Some other Elei Sinai settlers including Farhan's 25-year-old son Ofer and Yossi Berebi, said they were willing to take their chances and were not afraid of the Palestinians.

"If the state of Israel is ready to give me up, I am ready to give it up," said Berebi.