The Israeli government was looking on Wednesday to accelerate its preparations for the pull-out from the Gaza Strip as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon voiced concern about the state of readiness.
Sharon was chairing a meeting of a committee specially formed to prepare for the pull-out, which includes senior figures such as Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, officials said.
The pull-out is due to begin in less than three months, but issues such as where to house the settlers, future schooling for settler children and even whether their homes should be demolished have still to be resolved.
Sharon appeared distinctly unimpressed about the state of readiness as he toured sites on Tuesday in the southern Negev desert, where both temporary and permanent housing is being built to house the 8 000 Gaza settlers.
”We must work immediately and quickly,” said Sharon, according to a statement from his office. ”It is a shame to waste even one minute. Start working with all your might.”
The government’s preparations for the pull-out, which was first announced in February last year, have been heavily criticised. Sharon had initially timetabled the operation to begin in late July, but changed his mind about the start date last week to avoid a clash with a period of Jewish mourning.
Only a small number of settlers have so far publicly acknowledged their willingness to leave Gaza and four small Jewish enclaves in the northern West Bank that are also due to be evacuated.
However, a report in Wednesday’s Yediot Aharonot daily said about 450 of the 1 500 settler families in Gaza have accepted a government compensation package to assist their relocation.
Most of the families discreetly signed the compensation agreements, said the newspaper, and want to remain anonymous.
Awkward questions are also being asked about the security services’ readiness for the pull-out, after opponents were able to block dozens of roads in a mass protest on Monday that was meant to serve a trial run for a wider campaign of civil disobedience this summer.
Cabinet minister Haim Ramon, a member of the centre-left Labour party, said the police’s relatively restrained response to the protests was ”feeble”.
”I’m certain that if the Palestinians had used the same methods [as the Jewish protesters] to torpedo a government decision, we would not have been soft” in cracking down on them, said Ramon.
Thirteen Arab Israelis were killed at the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000 when police fired live ammunition to break up a protest that had blocked the roads.
Overnight, a member of radical Palestinian movement Hamas was killed in an exchange of gunfire with Israeli soldiers in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, close to the border with Egypt.
An Israeli military source said its positions in the area came under several attacks from light arms and anti-tank rockets, to which they responded.
The death raised to 4 758 the number of people killed since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted in September 2000, including 3 696 Palestinians and 988 Israelis, according to an AFP count.
Violence has dropped considerably since militants began observing a truce at the start of the year, but Hamas said after the killing that the quiet is being endangered by Israel.
”We say to Sharon and those who follow him that the security you are enjoying at the moment will be not for long if the aggression continues,” a statement said. — Sapa-AFP