Gaza pullout postponed by three weeks

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Monday he would postpone Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip by three weeks, to mid-August, to avoid conflicting with a traditional Jewish period of mourning. 

The delay could give settlers and rightist supporters, now staging a protest campaign, more time to organise their avowed resistance to Sharon's plan to "disengage" from conflict with Palestinians in occupied territory they want for a state.  

Sharon, in an interview on Israel's Channel One television, said the Gaza pullout would be launched "in consideration of the (mourning period), that is, immediately after Tisha B'av, apparently the 15th, 16th or 17th of August".  

He declined to give an exact starting date but said he believed that once it got under way, the evacuation of all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank would not take more than three weeks.  

Last month, Sharon had mooted a possible delay, citing Jewish religious sensibilities during the mourning spell that marks the destruction during biblical times of two Jerusalem temples. The observance ends on August 14.  

Devout Jews do not move house during this period. 

Asked about the postponement, Palestinian vice-premier Nabil Shaath repeated a call for Israel to seek a peace partnership with the Palestinian Authority rather than pursue unilateral steps.  

"Israel decided to withdraw from Gaza unilaterally and now it is putting it off unilaterally ... If the peace process is going to proceed in this pattern, there won't be a peace process," Shaath said.  

Officials of the mediating "quartet" -- the United States, Russia, European Union and United Nations -- meeting in Moscow urged Israel and the Palestinians to co-ordinate the Gaza pullout to avoid chaos in the aftermath.  

Indications that Hamas militants could dominate Gaza after Israelis leave strengthened on Monday with official results of municipal elections showing the Islamist faction trounced the Fatah party of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas in main towns.  

The solid performance by Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction but saying it would adhere to a ceasefire for now, could presage the outcome of a parliamentary election slated for July and problems for Abbas' agenda of peace talks with Israel.  

US-led mediators count on the ceasefire and Gaza pullout to revive a "road map" peace plan envisaging Palestinian statehood. 


However, the truce has been shaky, Sharon has said he will not hold talks on Palestinian statehood until Abbas cracks down on militants and many of the 8500 Gaza settlers have vowed to stay put, raising the spectre of violence.  

"The dates Sharon is playing with don't interest us in the least," said Itamar Ben-Gvir, a settler leader, after the prime minister announced the delay. "For all we care, he can set tomorrow as the day. We will not move from here."  

"Disengagement" would mark Israel's first dismantling of settlements in territory captured from Arab states in the 1967 Middle East war and where Palestinians seek independence.  

- REUTERS