Mideast - AFP
Sharon, under pressure, to offer scaled-back Gaza withdrawal plan
Date: Thu, May 27, 2004
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Faced with strong opposition within his cabinet, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) will on Sunday offer ministers a watered-down version of his Gaza Strip (news - web sites) withdrawal plan, seeking approval for the evacuation of only three settlements.
Sharon came to the compromise after talks with key ministers that led him to conclude that his full revamped plan would be rejected in a key vote at Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting, Israeli public and army radio reported.
On Sunday, government ministers will be asked to approve the evacuation of the isolated Netzarim and Morag settlements in southern Gaza, as well as Rafiah Yam in the far south of the territory.
The three settlements are seen as the most exposed to anti-Israeli attacks.
Preparations for the evacuation of the three settlements are expected to take nine months, according to the radio reports.
Sharon was nonetheless expected to ask his government to "take note" of his full plan for a phased military pullout as well as the evacuation of 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank.
The Israeli premier would also tell the parliament that he was not giving up on his full plan.
Humiliated on May 2 when his Likud party rejected a first version of his proposal to pull back unilaterally from Gaza, despite US backing for the plan, Sharon had since worked tirelessly to convince skeptical ministers to accept the modified version of his so-called "separation plan".
By choosing to proceed with a step-by-step approach, Sharon would allow the government to put a halt to the evacuation depending on the situation on the ground, an aide to the prime minister said.
By the end of the process, Israel would retain control of Gaza airspace and territorial waters but would remain on the ground only in an expanded buffer zone along the border with Egypt, scene of a large-scale Israeli operation that left 43 Palestinians dead earlier this month.
Sharon thus hoped to reassure wary ministers and convince the National Religious Party (NRP), one of two far-right parties in his coalition with six MPs in the 120-member Knesset, to remain in government.
On Thursday, the Israeli prime minister tried to persuade undecided ministers like Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (news - web sites), his main rival in the Likud party, to back his full plan.
Israeli media reported that while 11 ministers in the 23-strong cabinet supported the plan, eight were against, meaning Sharon needs one of the three undecided ministers to win a full majority, without his own 23rd vote.
According to an opinion poll released Thursday on public radio, 60 percent of Israelis support a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, where 13 soldiers were killed in the first half of May, while 40 percent oppose the move.
Meanwhile on the ground, the Israeli army destroyed the family homes of two Palestinian militants in the West Bank town of Nablus, an AFP correspondent witnessed.
The soldiers used explosives to demolish the second floor of the home of Nayef Abu Sarah, the Nablus head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a radical offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s mainstream Fatah (news - web sites) movement.
Israeli soldiers also destroyed the family home of Sami Sayed Salameh, a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who was killed five days ago in a suicide attack in the West Bank.
An army spokesman said the demolitions had been carried out as "a message to the terrorists and their accomplices, showing that there is a price to pay for their actions".
He added that such demolitions would continue, despite criticism from human rights watchdogs.
In the central Gaza Strip, the Israeli army conducted an overnight raid in Deir al-Balah, levelling three homes and damaging seven others, security sources said.
SOURCE
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