Gaza settlers scuffle with troops over demolition
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-27 10:34

Jewish settlers scuffled on Sunday with Israeli soldiers sent to demolish abandoned buildings the army said could be used as an outpost by Jewish militants to fight the planned withdrawal from Gaza.

The confrontation stoked fears of violence when Israel tries to remove settlers from the occupied Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank in August under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for "disengagement" from conflict with the Palestinians.

Young ultranationalists, some lying in front of bulldozers, some climbing on top of them, tried to halt the demolition of derelict beachfront bungalows -- a few of which were being refurbished as homes for incoming opponents of the withdrawal.

A Jewish settler is chased by Israeli soldiers near the Shirat Hayam settlement in the Gush Katif settlement bloc on June 26, 2005. [Reuters]

"Jews don't expel Jews," chanted protesters as soldiers and police dragged them away kicking and screaming. A youth was stretchered away with an arm injury.

"During the activity, dozens of civilians illegally entered the closed military zone that was declared, in an attempt to interfere with the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) activity and vandalize IDF equipment and vehicles," the army said.

Ten Israeli civilians and 10 soldiers were injured in the scuffles and were taken away for medical treatment, it said.

One soldier who called on fellow soldiers not to demolish the buildings was escorted away by other troops and will be tried by a senior officer on Monday, the army said.

Israeli soldiers scuffle with a Jewish settler atop an Israeli army bulldozer on its way to demolish uninhabited former Egyptian resort homes outside the Jewish settlement of Shirat Hayam in the southern Gaza Strip, Sunday June 26, 2005. [AP]

Authorities fear that an influx of supporters into settler enclaves could make evacuations more difficult and increase the chance of violence.

The army destroyed several of the 21 villas before the settlers arrived. The buildings near Shirat Hayam, some little more than skeletons, had been holiday homes for Egyptians before Israel captured Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war.

The cottages are close to a hotel that far-rightists, many from hardline settlements in the West Bank, took over and reinforced recently as a base to fight evacuation.

Israel plans to remove settlers from all 21 Gaza settlements and four of 120 in the West Bank. It will be the first evacuation of Jewish settlers from occupied territory that Palestinians want for a state.

CABINET AGREES RELOCATION PLAN

For many settlers, the land is a Biblical birthright. Right- wing opponents of the evacuation say it would also be a victory for Palestinian militants waging an uprising since 2000.

Polls show most Israelis support the evacuation of the 9,000 settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank -- whose stated aim is to disengage from fighting with the Palestinians.

Israel's cabinet agreed on Sunday to a controversial plan allowing settlers evacuated from the Gaza Strip to move together to a new coastal community.

While emphasizing that they still plan to resist removal from Gaza, hundreds of families have banded together to request a move en masse to nearby Nitzanim in Israel if they are forced out.

Environmentalists oppose the Nitzanim plan because it would mean building close to the dunes of Israel's last untouched coastal reserve -- a breeding ground for sea turtles and home to snakes and mammals, including a gerbil that lives nowhere else.

Other critics complain the plan would be too expensive and would give away prime land at a big discount.

"This is a special and difficult case, and if it is at all possible to make things easier for the settlers, we should do so," Sharon told the cabinet.

Washington backs the pullback as a step toward peacemaking, but violence on both sides has strained a four-month-old truce. An Israeli youth died on Sunday from wounds suffered in a militant attack that killed another settler on Friday.

Hundreds of mourners dressed in orange -- a symbol of opposition to the Gaza withdrawal -- attended his funeral in Jerusalem. At one point during the funeral procession, they laid the youth's shroud-wrapped body outside Sharon's office.

To show their strength, settlers and their supporters plan demonstrations across Israel during evening rush hour on Monday.

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