JERUSALEM, 22 October 2004 — Israel’s justice minister said yesterday far-right rabbis who urged soldiers to disobey orders to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip risked provoking civil war and could face prosecution. Tensions over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal plan have risen ahead of a parliamentary vote next week that could make or break his government and show whether Israel is ready to cede occupied land for the first time in more than two decades.
Joining an outcry against ultranationalist rabbis fiercely opposed to the plan, Justice Minister Yosef Lapid told Reuters: “We have reached the outer limits of our patience with statements that could pose a danger to public security.” Sharon has vowed to remove all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 enclaves in the West Bank by the end of 2005 to “disengage” from four years of conflict with the Palestinians.
His plan has splintered his ruling coalition and polarized public opinion. Several prominent far-right rabbis have called on religious soldiers to refuse orders to remove settlers from occupied land that they see as Israel’s by biblical birthright.
“I fear there is a risk of bloodshed. I hope it does not spill over into civil war,” said Lapid, who heads the stridently secular Shinui party, dedicated to weakening the power of ultra-Orthodox Judaism in Israeli politics and society.
Polls suggest most Israelis favor giving up the Gaza settlements, which they consider too costly in lives and money. Agitation by ultranationalists has prompted moderate rabbis to issue their own calls for soldiers to obey evacuation orders. But Sharon’s far-right opponents say a withdrawal would be a “reward for Palestinian terrorism”.
Palestinians regard Sharon’s plan as a ruse to keep most of the West Bank in Israeli hands. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei called it an attempt to bypass a US-sponsored peace “road map”, which has been shredded by persistent violence. “The aim of the disengagement plan is to kill the peace process to prevent creation of a Palestinian state,” he said.
The Israeli military’s recent massive offensive in northern Gaza left 675 Palestinians homeless and caused more than three million dollars worth of damage, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said yesterday.
In its assessment of “Operation Days of Penitence”, which began late last month and was wrapped up over the weekend, the United Nations Relief Works Agency said 91 buildings, home to 143 families, had been destroyed.
“Over 90 percent of those affected were refugees. The total cost of rebuilding these homes is estimated at around $2.5 million,” the report said.
In addition to the destruction of the buildings, the report said five UNRWA-run school compounds were damaged in the operation as well as a private kindergarten and three mosques.
The cost of damage to roads churned up by Israeli tanks was put at $240,000, while the cost of repairing infrastructure such as damaged drainage and communications networks was put at $350,000.
UNRWA also said that large swathes of farm land, particularly olive groves and citrus trees in the Beit Hanun area, were leveled during the operation. “In excess of 50 percent of all arable land in Beit Hanun has now been destroyed since September 2000”, start of the Palestinian uprising, the report added.
Israeli troops killed two Palestinians yesterday while a soldier died in a militant attack on the territory’s border with Egypt, the army said. An army spokesman said troops killed the Palestinians after they spotted them trying to infiltrate into Israel from north Gaza. In southern Gaza, a soldier was killed in what appeared to be a bomb attack or an anti-tank missile fired by militants on the Gaza-Egypt border, the spokesman said.
In Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit announced yesterday that he and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman intend to visit Israel next month to discuss bilateral issues as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The minister did not say if the date was convenient, but he stressed the significance of the visit despite calls in Egypt for it to be called off due to Israel’s practices against the Palestinians, saying dialogue was the best way to resolve problems. “Anger and refusing to discuss will not lead us to anything. It is important to counter positions in a positive manner,” he told reporters.
It was not immediately clear if the visit, the first by Egyptian officials to Israel since the Oct. 7 bombings in the Sinai that left 32 people dead, many of them Israeli tourists, would include a trip to the Palestinian territories.
