Dozens of Jewish settler families in the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank have begun searching for new homes inside Israel in light of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposal to evacuate the communities, an Israeli official and real estate agents said on Monday.
Sharon plans to dismantle the 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank as part of a plan to ”disengage” from the Palestinians. The plan must pass votes in Sharon’s Likud Party, his Cabinet and the Parliament before it can be implemented.
About 30 families from the Gush Katif bloc of settlements in the Gaza Strip have in the past two weeks inquired about homes in the Negev Desert in southern Israel, said Orly Katav, a spokesperson for the Negev Settlement Promotion Authority.
Dozens of families from West Bank communities slated for evacuation have hired agents from the Anglo Saxon realty office in the northern city of Afula to find them homes there, said the manager of the office, Amir Meiri.
”I think that this is connected to the disengagement plan because there has been a wave of inquiries in the past weeks, just like there was a wave at the start of the fighting,” Meiri said.
Settlement officials denied residents were making preparations to move.
Debbie Drori, a spokesperson for the West Bank settlement of Kadim that is slated to be evacuated, said she knew of no families there planning to move.
Settlers are currently embroiled in a large campaign against Sharon’s evacuation plan prior to the Likud referendum on May 2.
Almost 8 000 settlers would be moved according to the plan, out of a total of about 220 000 who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The settlers would be compensated under the plan, which is slated to be implemented by the end of 2005.
Some settlers said they would resist any dismantling of settlements, insisting the areas are part of the biblical land of Israel granted to the Jews by God.
Palestinians demand an independent state in all the West Bank and Gaza Strip — which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. — Sapa-AP