AP
Resistant Israeli Settlers May Get Prison
Date: Mon, Sep 27, 2004
By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - Armed settlers who resist evacuation could face five years in prison under a law proposed Sunday before next year's planned removal of all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) and four in the West Bank.
Settler leaders vehemently oppose the pullout, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s Likud Party has voted against it twice. Sharon has spoken of fears of civil war over the withdrawal, and security officials warn that Sharon might be a target for assassination.
A draft law, distributed by Sharon to his Cabinet Sunday, includes a five-year jail sentence for those threatening to use, or using, weapons against security forces evacuating the settlers.
Sharon has said the evacuation will begin next summer and last about 12 weeks.
Yonatan Bassi, head of the office implementing the disengagement, quoted a poll showing that about half of the 8,800 affected settlers did not believe the evacuation would be carried out. He estimated that about half would leave voluntarily.
The exit will cost as much as $667 million, Bassi said.
In violence Sunday, an Israeli helicopter fired two missiles at a metal workshop in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza, slightly wounding two people. Israel said militants used the workshop to make mortars they frequently use to fire at nearby Jewish settlements.
A 24-year-old Israel-American woman, Tiferet Tratner, was killed in shelling of one settlement Friday, becoming the first settler to die in such an attack.
The settlement removal is part of Sharon's "unilateral disengagement" plan to separate Israel from the Palestinians after four years of conflict. Sharon also is building a wall along the West Bank.
Charging that Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s administration is involved in the violence, Sharon refuses to coordinate the pullback with him. Palestinians charge the plan is an elaborate West Bank land grab. Sharon has said one of his goals is to solidify Israel control over main settlement blocs where most of the 236,000 West Bank settlers live.
In six weeks, Israel will begin giving advance payments of compensation for property and homes of settlers willing to leave voluntarily, Bassi said.
He was confident that "about half" of the settlers would leave without a fight, he said.
A spokesman for Gaza settlers, Eran Steinberg, denied that most settlers would leave voluntarily, saying Bassi's comments were meant as "psychological warfare" against the settlers.
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