MIDDLE EAST: ISRAELI CABINET APPROVES EVACUATION OF SETTLERS FROM THE GAZA STRIP AND PART OF THE WEST BANK

Record ID: 400921

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: ISRAELI CABINET APPROVES EVACUATION OF SETTLERS FROM THE GAZA STRIP AND PART OF THE WEST BANK
  • Date: 20th February 2005
  • Summary: (BN07) JERUSALEM (FEBRUARY 20, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. PAN: ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON ENTERING CABINET MEETING 0.10 2. PAN: ISRAELI MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU ENTERING CABINET MEETING 0.15 3. SHARON IN CABINET MEETING 0.21 4. MINISTERS AT CABINET MEETING INCLUDING SHIMON PERES 0.27 5. (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) ISRAELI PRIME
  • Embargoed: 7th March 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JERUSALEM/ GUSH KATIF, RAFAH, KHAN YOUNIS, AND GAZA CITY, GAZA/ VARIOUS LOCATIONS AND RAMALLAH, WEST BANK/ EREZ CROSSING
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVAE0NQ4JWXYEZFBB8H8CGW5ZXWT
  • Story Text: Israeli cabinet approves the evacuation of settlers
    from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank.




    The Israeli cabinet approved on Sunday (February 20)
    the evacuation of settlers from the Gaza Strip and part of
    the West Bank under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to
    "disengage" from conflict with Palestinians.

    Some 8,500 Jewish settlers would be uprooted from 21
    fortified enclaves in the Gaza Strip and a few hundred from
    four of the 120 settlements in the larger West Bank. The
    pullout is expected to begin in July and wrap up by
    September.

    Although leaving Gaza, Israel says it intends to hold
    on permanently to large settlement blocs in the West Bank
    where most of the 240,000 Jews in the occupied territories
    live.

    Sharon regards Gaza, a desert sliver where settlers
    wedged among 1.3 million Palestinians tie down large
    numbers of Israeli troops, as a quagmire lacking strategic
    or economic value.

    The Prime Minister told his cabinet on Sunday morning:
    "The government will discuss today and will decide on
    the issue of evacuating settlements included in the
    disengagement plan. It's not an easy day, it's not a happy
    day. The evacuation of settlements in Gaza and northern
    Samaria is a difficult step, a very difficult one,
    difficult for the residents, difficult for the citizens of
    Israel, difficult for me and I am sure also difficult for
    members of the government, but it is a crucial step for the
    future of the state of Israel."
    Israel on Sunday let a group of 16 Palestinians exiled
    to the Gaza Strip in military crackdowns return home to the
    West Bank in a sign of warming relations with the
    Palestinian Authority.

    Israel has issued a series of confidence-building
    measures it said were aimed at strengthening reformist
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who was elected on
    January 9.

    The majority of the 16 Palestinians, who include
    members of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, were under
    administrative detention or arrest. Instead of renewing
    their detention, they were sent to Gaza.

    The 16 Palestinians left Gaza via the Erez Crossing and
    will be then be transported to the Bitunia crossing in the
    West Bank, from where they will return to their homes.

    The 16 are part of a group of 56 Palestinians deported
    to Gaza, which Israel has said will be allowed to return to
    their homes. The agreement is expected to be implemented
    later this month.

    The group includes fugitive gunmen who took refuge in
    Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity in 2002 during a
    stand-off with Israeli forces. Some of the militants holed
    up in the church were deported to Gaza while others were
    sent to Europe.

    But another Israeli cabinet decision expected on Sunday
    -- to endorse a barrier route looping around major West
    Bank settlement blocs -- was likely to add to Palestinian
    fears they would lose much of the West Bank they seek for a
    Palestinian state.

    "As far the Israeli Knesset decision to continue with
    the wall and the government position to continue with the
    wall, we see this as pre-empting and prejudging issues that
    are reserved for the permanent status negotiations. This is
    dictation, not negotiation. We call upon the Israeli
    government to join us at the negotiating table to deal with
    the permanent status issues, Jerusalem, Borders, Refugees
    Water etc, The continuation of dictating policies
    undermines the efforts being exerted to revive the peace
    process and to put it back on track," said Senior
    Palestinian Minister of Negotiations Saeb Erekat as the
    Palestinian President convened the Fatah Central Committee
    in Ramallah.

    In Khan Younis, Palestinian medics said a man was
    wounded by Israeli forces when he went to collect wood near
    the bordering fence with the Gush Katif settlement. Israeli
    military sources said troops opened fired at a man who came
    close to the security fence.

    The fresh violence in the occupied strip overshadowed
    optimism as Israel's cabinet began a historic vote to
    approve the withdrawal from all of Gaza's 21 settlements
    and four of the 120 in the West Bank, already endorsed last
    week by parliament.


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