JERUSALEM, 11 May 2004 — Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz argued Gaza settlements were an “historical mistake”, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon worked on a new version of his Gaza pullout plan to be unveiled within three weeks. “With or without an agreement, there will no longer be any Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip within five years,” Mofaz said, quoted by public radio yesterday.
“This region was not bequeathed to us by our ancestors and it was an historical mistake to keep settlers there,” he added at a meeting Sunday, in defense of Sharon’s plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
Mofaz’s comments drew protests from settlers and the government’s ultra-nationalist camp, with Deputy Education Minister Zvi Hendel, himself a Gaza settler, accusing him of “abetting terrorism”. “Settlers are men, women and children who have been living in their houses for decades and one cannot play with their lives by delegitimizsing the glorious achievements of settlements,” Hendel said.
The exchange came after Palestinian gunmen opened fire late Sunday on Israeli mourners gathered near the Gush Katif settlement bloc in Gaza where a pregnant settler and her four daughters were shot dead on May 2. No one was wounded but soldiers returned fire, killing an armed Palestinian, sources on both sides said.
Overnight, the army leveled land near the by-pass road which connects the coastal settlement bloc to Israel. The settlers had requested that a corridor be secured along the road. Palestinian sources said the demolitions in the area had left some 50 families homeless.
A week after his plan to unilaterally “disengage” from the Palestinians was crushingly defeated by his own Likud party, Sharon was continuing his efforts to salvage the plan. He met yesterday with Education Minister Limor Livnet and minister without portfolio Meir Shetrit, both from the Likud, and also with Transportation Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who heads up the far-right National Union party, army radio reported.
On Sunday, Sharon announced his intention to unveil a new version of the Gaza withdrawal proposal within three weeks.
Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei is due to meet US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in Germany next week to seek guarantees that key issues would not be jeopardized by unilateral Israeli moves.
Qorei and his Cabinet met yesterday to discuss the agenda of the upcoming meeting, his highest-level talks with Washington since he came to office in November 2003.
In the West Bank, a Palestinian student was shot dead overnight by Israeli border guards in Abu Dis, just north of Jerusalem. And in Nablus, Palestinian police seized and detonated explosives found at the home of a woman shortly after her arrest by Israeli troops in the West Bank city, Palestinian security sources said.
