Some Gaza settlers agree move to Israel

JERUSALEM - A first group of Jewish settlers are signalling they may break with comrades and, pushed to the wall, would give in to Israel's plan to uproot them from Gaza to disengage from conflict with the Palestinians.

Settler leaders said on Tuesday that so far 430 families -- about 2000 of the 8500 settlers living in the Gaza Strip -- had signed forms indicating their preparedness to move to a new seaside community in Israel after withdrawing.

But they said the group would still put up passive resistance to soldiers sent to evacuate them under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's withdrawal plan. The majority of the rightist settlers continue to spurn any negotiations on relocation and have vowed to stay put.

The new community would be built by the government to relocate settlers from Gush Katif, the largest Gaza settlement, on a strip of prime coastal real estate near the southern town of Ashkelon after the evacuation, due to begin in August.

"As of yesterday, 430 families have signed the forms and we expect the final number to be around 700 to 800 families," said Yoav Elul, one of the settler leaders behind the initiative.

"Signing the forms carries no legal commitment," he said. "It's intended to provide the state with a total number of residents willing to move to the new community in Nitzanim as has been requested (by government officials)."

Elul said he and most of the signatories would still mount non-violent resistance to removal from their homes, but at the same time wanted to safeguard their futures, in acknowledgment that the withdrawal could prove inevitable.

Most Israelis favour what would be the first dismantling of Jewish settlements on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestinians want for a state. A fragile ceasefire now prevails after a 4 1/2-year Palestinian revolt.

Sharon intends to evacuate all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank -- some 9000 Jews in all -- in an operation he wants to complete in 4-5 weeks. But he also aims to keep larger West Bank settlements for good.

Eran Sternberg, main spokesman for the Gush Katif settlement council, said the number of signatories had been inflated and the real total was around 150 families. He urged settlers to stick to a common front against negotiating withdrawal.

To date most of the settlers have opposed any negotiation over compensation packages approved by Israel's parliament and worth as much as US$300,000 ($430,000) per family.

Israeli officials hope to crack the almost blanket refusal by Gush Katif settlers to negotiate compensation and prepare for their departure by enticing them with the prospect of relocating their community to seaside villas in Israel.

Environmentalists are deeply opposed to the plan which they say will destroy Israel's last pristine strip of coastline.

Elul, a father of five who has lived in Gush Katif for 25 years, said he would oppose the withdrawal until the moment that police drag him from his house this August.

"I will fight because it's my house, but I won't lift my hand in violence against the soldiers," he told Reuters. Sternberg said settlers should unite in refusal to discuss compensation in a standoff with Sharon's government that ultranationalists hope will derail the Gaza withdrawal plan.

"The boat is rocking slightly but so what? Everyone is still in the struggle against the disengagement," Sternberg said.

Settlers regard land from which they are to be uprooted as part of their biblical birthright. They and their supporters vow to scuttle the plan with an escalating series of mass protests.

On Monday, some 3000 settlers blocked major traffic intersections across Israel in the biggest such outburst against abandoning settlements in Gaza.

- REUTERS