First Jewish settlers agree Gaza move

First Jewish settlers agree Gaza move

Independent UK
Date: 12-26-04

By Eric Silver in Jerusalem

Twenty families in a small Israeli farming community deep in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday became the first Jewish settlement to agree to move inside Israel under Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan.

The 50 adults and more than 100 children at Pe'at Sadeh will settle in Mavki'im, an ailing smallholders' co-operative near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. With government assistance, they plan to rebuild their greenhouses and continue growing tomatoes, peppers and other salads for export to Europe. Five families from neighbouring settlements have signed up to join them.

Yonathan Basi, who is overseeing civilian aspects of the evacuation, welcomed their decision as "the beginning of a great movement of settlers towards dialogue with us", though he admitted others were slow to reach agreement. In all, 8,500 settlers are to be evacuated from 21 Gaza settlements and four from the northern West Bank. The first group could move as early as March.

Last week hardline settler leaders threatened mass civil disobedience and other Gaza settlers donned orange stars like the yellow ones the Nazis forced Jews to wear.

Motti Levy, one of the Pe'at Sadeh farmers, said: "We founded the settlement in 1989 for ideological reasons, and we never thought we'd have to leave. It hurts us a lot. But we're law-abiding people. We accept the government's decision."

Mavki'im was founded half a century ago by Holocaust survivors from Hungary. Most of them are now over 70 and their children have moved away.

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