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Bekijk Volledige Versie : Terugtrekking uit Gaza wordt uitgesteld tot na 15 Augustus



Spoetnik
19-04-05, 10:01
Panel set to okay pullout delay; Katz wants late Oct.
By Haaretz Staff

The ministerial committee charged with finding alternative housing for evacuated settlers is expected to approve Tuesday the postponement of the evacuation of settlers from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank until August 15, Israel Radio reported Tuesday.

The committee will also vote on a Housing Ministry plan to resettle some evacuees in the Nitzanim dunes between Ashdod and Ashkelon. Housing Minister Isaac Herzog is due to tour the area Tuesday.

Just before the committee was to meet at 10 A.M., Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz, a member of the cabinet disengagement subcommittee, said he would propose that the panel recommend postponing a longer delay for the beginning of the evacuations, until late October.

"I will propose to the committee that it postpone the evacuation until after the High Holidays, at the end of October," Katz told Army Radio.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his support Monday for the proposal by Disengagement Administration head Yonatan Bassi to postpone the evacuation. The postponement would avoid having people move to new homes during the three-week period of mourning between the 19th of the Hebrew month of Tamuz and the 9th of Av (Tisha B'Av), when it is prohibited by Jewish religious law.

"Every effort must be made to make things easier for the residents," Sharon said.

Sharon met Tuesday for the first time with representatives from the settlement of Homesh in the northern West Bank, which is due to be evacuated.

Katz favors starting pullout at end of Oct.
Katz said Tuesday that the initial target date for the onset of the evacuations, July 25, was set in order to allow sufficient time for settlers to be relocated in new temporary housing so that their children could start classes when the school year opens on September 1.

According to Katz, delaying the evacuations until after August 15, after the observance of the traditional mourning period ending on Tisha B'Av, would make it extremely difficult for the children to settle in before the new school year.

Moreover, he said, it was impossible within the proposed time frame to provide agricultural alternatives to the farmers that make up a third of the settlers.

Katz denied that his proposal was tied to his long-standing opposition to the disengagement. He said that he intends to honor the decisions of the Knesset and the cabinet which approved the pullout.

IDF learned of delay from media
The Israel Defense Forces General Staff reportedly learned of the intention to postpone disengagement from the mass-circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth Monday.

Senior IDF officers told Haaretz Monday that if the government ordered the pullout postponed the army would of course act accordingly. They also said that postponement would mean new arrangements would have to be made for the deployment of forces and that the original timetable had been coordinated with the conclusion of various IDF courses.

Postponement would also have implications for reservists, who have already received callup orders that would have to be reissued. The IDF recently cut the number of reserve battalions that were to take part in the disengagement because of the shortened timetable, on the assumption that regular forces would be returned to their normal assignments quicker than had been first been envisioned.


Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon said late Monday that terror would increase significantly after the disengagement, particularly in the West Bank.

Speaking at a conference in Herzliya, the chief of staff said people shouldn't expect "the messiah will come with the disengagement."

He also added that in the past weeks there is an increase in shooting incidents and the use of explosives.

Ya'alon said Israel must demand that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas act against the terrorist infrastructure in the territories immediately.

Settlers divided over postponement
Gush Katif residents were divided Monday over their attitude toward the possible three-week postponement. The pessimists responded scathingly to what they saw as an attempt by Disengagement Administration head Bassi and Sharon to appear humane and said that putting off disengagement would not detract from the cruelty of the plan. "The postponement doesn't make any difference. In fact, Tisha B'Av [the date commemorating the destruction of the Temples] actually suits us," one Gush Katif activist said. "The date fits Sharon's decrees of destruction and expulsion," MK Binyamin Elon of the National Union said.

Pinhas Wallerstein, chairman of the Binyamin Regional Council, said he was concerned that Sharon would advance the date of the disengagement instead of postponing it, after talks he held with officials close to Sharon.

Other Gush Katif residents saw the postponement as a sign of better things to come. After watching for a year the way that Sharon has moved ahead unimpeded, without changing anything in the plan, they said they saw the postponement as the first crack in the wall. "The most important thing for us is that the sacred date of July 20 has been broken," Ganei Tal resident Shlomo Vassertil said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/566850.html