JERUSALEM, 6 April 2004 — Seventy-three percent of Palestinians and 64 percent of Israelis support an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, according to surveys by a Palestinian think tank and an Israeli university.
Sixty-six percent of Palestinians said they consider a withdrawal a victory for the Palestinians, compared to 44 percent of Israelis who share that view.
However, only 34 percent of Palestinians believe the withdrawal will actually be carried out, compared to 54 percent of Israeli respondents.
One survey, carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in the West Bank town of Ramallah, was posted on the think tank’s web site yesterday. The Palestinian poll was conducted among 1,320 respondents, with an error margin of 3 percent.
The Israeli poll, by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was published in the Yediot Ahronot daily. It was conducted among 505 respondents, with an error margin of 4.5 percent.
Sharon said in newspaper interviews yesterday that a unilateral withdrawal would, in fact, be a serious blow to the Palestinians, and could put their statehood aspirations on hold for many years. The prime minister has come under attack from Israeli hardliners who accuse him of making too many concessions.
Palestinian officials have said that they welcome any withdrawal, but that it must be coordinated with them and be carried out as part of the U.-backed “road map” peace plan, which envisions a Palestinian state by next year.
The Israeli Army, meanwhile, yesterday destroyed the family home of a Palestinian activist suspected of involvement in a series of anti-Israeli attacks, according to security sources.
Israeli military sources said that they had demolished Falah Shehadah’s home in the village of Deir Al-Sudan, to the north of the West Bank town of Ramallah, several weeks after his arrest.
The Israelis said that the 32-year-old father of three was a member of the Islamist movement Hamas, but Palestinian security sources said he was a follower of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a radical offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.
Israeli forces killed three Palestinians outside a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, medical officials said yesterday.
The three men, all aged 19, were apparently hit by Israeli tank-fire in the Palestinian village of Gohr Edeek near the settlement of Netzarim late on Sunday, the officials said.
An Israeli military source confirmed forces fired at “three suspicious figures” spotted approaching a road leading out of Netzarim that Israel has declared off limits to Palestinians for fear its convoys could come under attack. The bodies were recovered yesterday by Palestinian medics, who said the men were unarmed.
Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch said that Sharon’s renewed threat to rid himself of Arafat was “another measure of violence” as he urged both sides to stop violence and make peace.
“It is another measure of violence, it is another proof that the human person does not count,” Michel Sabbah told reporters in the countdown to Good Friday, adding that Sharon’s threat was “unacceptable.”
“By killing President Arafat, you will be more insecure, you will stir more violence,” he said. Undaunted by an international chorus of criticism, Sharon said yesterday his archfoe was to blame for the “murder of Jews for decades,” after last week calling him a “marked man.”
Sabbah stressed that the quest for security and peace was incumbent on both the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships as “there is not one party responsible for the violence, the responsibility falls on both parties.”
In his Easter address, Sabbah also called on Sharon and Arafat to “reconsider what they have done in order to avoid for themselves and for their people the sin of more bloodshed and the permanence of insecurity.”
Jordan yesterday sought the help of the United States and Germany to ensure that Israel’s pullout “be part of the road map and leads to the creation of a Palestinian state”, according to an official statement in Amman.
The remarks were made during separate telephone calls initiated by Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher with US Secretary of State Colin Powell and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, the statement said.
“Moasher discussed with Powell and Fischer Israel’s and emphasized the need that such a withdrawal should be part of the road map and leads to the creation of a Palestinian state,” it added.
“The foreign minister also made it clear that the move should not involve concessions (from the Palestinian side) that affects the final stage of the peace process,” the statement said.
