Sharon enrages settlers over Gaza pullout timetable

1.00pm

JERUSALEM - Jewish settlers could start leaving Gaza in two months under a withdrawal timetable proposed by a government committee, setting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on a collision course with the powerful settler lobby.

The schedule, which envisages completion of a Gaza pullout by October 1, 2005, inflamed Jewish settlers and their rightist political allies who threatened to step up efforts to bring down Sharon's shaky coalition.

Sources in Sharon's office said he had not yet approved the timeline, drawn up by the National Security Council and adopted by a steering committee overseeing the Gaza withdrawal.

However, the blueprint was in accord with comments by Sharon that there would be no Israelis in Gaza by the end of 2005.

"Maybe there will be people who will leave but I know the majority will not agree," Gaza settler spokesman Eran Sternberg told Reuters. He said most of the 7500 settlers had signed a declaration refusing to leave or negotiate payouts.

Sternberg said the settlers were pinning their hopes on the possibility that Sharon could be forced out of office long before any evacuation began in earnest.

Hardliners in Sharon's Likud party bristled at the timeline, calling it an attempt to entice settlers to leave before a cabinet vote on a start of evacuations which could not be before March 2005 under a deal Sharon struck with his opponents.

Under the proposed timetable, Gaza settlers could start to leave voluntarily this August and have until September 1, 2005 to move out before the army evacuated them by force, according to a copy of the document obtained by Reuters.

The military would have two weeks from September 1, 2005 to forcibly remove any holdouts, and the army would complete its Gaza pullout by October 1, 2005, after the last settler is gone.

After days of quiet in the West Bank, fresh violence erupted as soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians in separate confrontations, including a 13-year-old boy shot in the head in the city of Nablus, medics said.

A second Palestinian, 22, was shot dead during a raid in a village near Bethlehem, they said.

A military source said in both instances soldiers had targeted assailants who threw firebombs at the troops, hitting two people. Four other Palestinians were wounded in the clashes.

Under the proposed Israeli timetable for evacuating Gaza, settlers who leave of their free will could receive more state compensation under the proposal than those who must be ejected.

A senior Israeli official told Reuters "there is no decision yet" on the timeline. "It is (just) a plan."

Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said parliament would have to approve any amounts before any compensation could be paid out, media reports said.

Political analysts said the plan could fuel a new crisis for Sharon, now heading a minority government after two National Religious Party politicians left the coalition in protest at cabinet approval in principle of his Gaza plan on Sunday.

"If the report is correct, and the evacuation is to take place in another two months, the (entire) NRP faction will be out of the coalition within two weeks," said National Religious Party deputy Nissan Slomiansky.

Sharon's "Disengagement Plan" envisages the removal of all 21 settlements in Gaza, a sandy coastal strip where 1.3 million Palestinians live, and four of 120 in the West Bank, home to some 230,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians.

However, before he can proceed, Sharon needs to fend off attempts to topple him by securing more allies in parliament, where he is assured of only 59 of 120 votes.

Sharon's hand will be strengthened if Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz decides as expected by mid-June not to indict him on bribery charges.

- REUTERS