1,000 Gaza families ready to leave
About 1,000 families from Gush Katif settlement bloc say that while they still oppose pullout plan, they would accept relocation if government keeps community united
GAZA - About 1,000 Gaza families have signaled readiness to leave the territory and plan to demand the government move them together, marking the strongest stance of possible acceptance for Israel's pullout plan by settlers.
The announcement would come days after a series of protests by staunch right-wingers opposed to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate more than 8,500 residents from 21 Jewish enclaves in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank while strengthening large West Bank settlements.
The Gush Katif families, Gaza’s largest settlement bloc, plan to submit a letter to the High Court of Justice stating that while the are opposed to the withdrawal, they would like the court to press the government to move their whole community into Israel to ensure they remain united.
“If, God forbid, the uprooting occurs, it is our interest to have the whole bloc moved together,” they wrote in the letter. “We shall not rest nor stay silent until a solution is found for everyone. We are interested in unity.”
The families, out of about 1,600 who live in the settlement bloc, said they would like to be moved to the agricultural town of Nitzanim in southern Israel. Sharon, who announced his plan in 2004, said last month that construction for hundreds of homes for settlers slated for evacuation would soon begin there.
“We understand Nitzanim is the most appropriate area to copy the bloc into,” they wrote. “We are asking you to act so that as long as the solution is in Nitzanim, the community can be established there."
Compensation negotiations
The government had been pushing settlers lately to negotiate with them over compensation for their relocation and has also promised increased funds if they move prior to the start of the pullout in August or agree to live in select development towns. They are expected to receive tens of thousands of dollars for their evacuation.
Attorney Yitzhak Meron, who represents the families, said their identities will not be disclosed when he hands the court their letter to ensure they would not be under any firm obligation to move.
"This is a letter of support by residents who want to emphasize the importance of the struggle, but have made clear that if we are uprooted, we want to stay together, and if Nitzanim is determined (as the appropriate location), then so be it. What they say now is what they've been saying all the time," he said.
Meron said the residents have demanded that the court order the government to show them all the details of Sharon’s plan regarding Nitzanim, to ensure they would be moving into established buildings and infrastructures.
Anti-withdrawal protests
Staunch right-wingers oppose the pullout plan, claiming all of the West Bank and Gaza as their biblical birthright and vowing to stop it. Dozens of anti-withdrawal activists burned tires on an Israeli highway on Wednesday to protest the plan – a known tactic implemented in recent months.
The army plans to seal off Gaza’s borders to non-residents ahead of the withdrawal in the wake of recent security alerts of protesters who plan to move to the territory to fortify the settlements and help resist the evacuation by Israeli forces.
About 12 families from West Bank settlements, including the town of Hebron, have already taken refuge in a hotel in Gush Katif. The building was abandoned at the start of a four-year-old Palestinian uprising in September 2000, and has no running water or electricity.
