RAMALLAH, 6 April 2005 — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and settler leaders worked yesterday to hammer out a compromise that would move thousands of Gaza settlers en masse to an area off Israel’s Mediterranean coast.
The tense and deeply emotional meeting was the first concrete sign that many settlers were willing to cooperate with the pullout and abandon threats of violent resistance.
“We understand that there is no choice. We are one people, we want to remain one people, so that’s why we met with the prime minister,” said Eliezer Yaakov, a representative of the Gan Or settlement at the two-hour meeting.
In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian gunmen shot and seriously wounded an Israeli in a greenhouse in the Morag settlement, the army said.
An umbrella militant group, the Popular Resistance Committee, claimed responsibility, saying the attack was “in retaliation for Israel’s daily crimes against the Palestinians.”
Such violent incidents have been rare since Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas declared an end to four years of violence at a summit on Feb. 8.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei yesterday denied claims by Israeli officials that he had fallen out with Abbas.
“I reiterate that there is no row with President Abu Mazen (Abbas) — I am his prime minister, I work with him and I respect him,” Qorei told reporters at the opening of a weekly Cabinet meeting.
“I say to those Israeli officials that the propaganda that they are putting about is baseless.
“These claims of rows are put about by the Israelis in an attempt to portray the Palestinian Authority as wavering and not up to the job,” he said.
In recent days, a number of Israeli officials have spoken out against Qorei, accusing him of deliberating seeking to undermine Abbas and of remaining loyal to the legacy of their sworn enemy the late Yasser Arafat.
— With input from agencies
