JERUSALEM, 27 May 2005 — Nearly all Gaza Strip settlers have agreed to move to Israel as a group following this summer’s withdrawal, a spokesman said yesterday, signaling the collapse of what was once wall-to-wall resistance to the government’s plan to evacuate the coastal area.

Most of the 1,600 families in Gaza signed a document stating that if the government goes ahead with the plan to dismantle Gaza settlements, they want to move as a group, said Eran Sternberg, a settler spokesman. However, he insisted, settlers reserve the right to resist once soldiers try to remove them.

Until now, settler opposition to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to evacuate some 9,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank communities has been fierce, with opponents blocking roads, burning tires and threatening to bring tens of thousands of people to Gaza to block the mid-August pullout.

Most settlers have refused to cooperate with officials responsible for compensating and relocating them. However, a new document written by settler leaders states: “If we are uprooted, we will all go as a group and look out for each other.”

The government has offered to move most settlers as a group to Nitzanim, a desirable coastal area in Israel, just north of Gaza. Only about 150 Gaza families have agreed to the offer, while others had rejected the terms of resettlement. However, the new document indicates that more settler families could eventually move to Nitzanim.

“The main thing that is important to all of us is that if we are evacuated that we remain together,” said Yigal Meoded, a resident of the Neve Dekalim settlement who signed the document.

However, settler leaders insisted that opposition to the withdrawal has not weakened. Resistance to evacuation will “shake the nation,” Sternberg said.

Palestinians to Raze Homes of Gaza Settlers

The Palestinian Authority plans to demolish Jewish settler houses in Gaza and replace them with high-rise apartment blocks to ease crowding if Israel leaves the homes intact, a minister said yesterday.

Israel is still debating whether to destroy the houses when it evacuates 8,500 settlers from the Gaza Strip in three months’ time under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan for “disengagement” from conflict with the Palestinians.

“If Israel does not destroy settlers’ homes, we will destroy them,” Housing and Public Works Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh told Reuters. He said most Palestinian Cabinet members favored demolition.

Shtayyeh said the main reason was to make efficient use of scarce land in Gaza, one of the most densely populated territories on earth.

The suburban-style settler houses with red roofs, white walls and neat gardens contrast with the close-packed cinderblock buildings that are home to most of the 1.3 million Palestinians on the other side of the strip’s barbed wire.

Palestinian officials would prefer that Israel destroys the homes and removes the rubble when it quits Gaza — helping to prevent looting after the Israelis leave and avoiding tough decisions about who might be given the homes.

But Israel’s army is against demolishing the homes, warning that it could take months and would put soldiers in danger.

Washington has also urged Israel not to destroy the homes, as it did in a 1982 pullout from settlements in the Sinai Peninsula as part of a peace deal with Egypt.

Shtayyeh said the settlement land could be used to build high-rise buildings to ease crowding. Israeli Army demolitions have also left thousands homeless during raids Israel says target Palestinian militants.

Shtayyeh put the estimated demolition cost at $25 million, and said the rubble could be used to build a seaport in Gaza.

He said the Palestinian Authority would make use of any other remaining infrastructure in the Jewish settlements, including roads and electricity networks.

Palestinians welcome the withdrawal, but fear it is an Israeli ruse to give up hard-to-defend Gaza while consolidating its hold on large swathes of the West Bank. The Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank, both occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, for a future state.