Israel approves evacuation of Gaza settlements

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's cabinet has approved his Gaza withdrawal plan, the first time an Israeli government has decided to dismantle settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.

However, another cabinet vote, the endorsement of a barrier route looping around Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank, added to Palestinians' fears that Israel was cementing its grip on big swathes of occupied territory and imposing de facto borders.

The Gaza pullout has been touted as a possible springboard to peace talks after this month's truce deal, but Palestinians warned that extending the barrier further into West Bank territory would hurt efforts to revive negotiations.

Within hours of the cabinet's 17-5 vote on his Gaza plan, Sharon signed an order for evacuations to begin on July 20, giving settlers five months' notice to get out.

"As far as the government is concerned, the die has been cast," said cabinet minister Danny Naveh, a hardliner in Sharon's rightist Likud party who voted against evacuation but seemed resigned to the impossibility of stopping the pullout.

The US-backed blueprint calls for removing all 21 Gaza settlements and four of 120 in the West Bank. It will be carried out in four phases, each requiring a separate cabinet vote.

"The evacuation of settlements is a difficult step, a very difficult one," Sharon, once considered the godfather of the settler movement, said as he convened his cabinet. "But it is a crucial step for the future of the state of Israel. "

Hamas Islamic militants waging an uprising claimed the decision as the "fruit of Palestinian resistance".

Sharon has fought for over a year to get his withdrawal plan past far rightists opposed to ceding an inch of occupied land.

Polls show most Israelis welcome a withdrawal from Gaza but ultranationalists call it a "reward for terrorism" and many settlers believe the land is theirs by biblical birthright.

Despite that, it has been called a possible step towards peace by both Israelis and Palestinians, buoyed by optimism after a Feb 8 truce agreement between Sharon and new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"In today's government decision, Israel proved that it is willing to make painful compromises and take great steps to achieving peace," Sharon told visiting US Jewish leaders.

However, Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the go-ahead for the final segment of Israel's barrier, expected to cut off up to 7 per cent of the West Bank in all, "will undermine efforts being exerted to revive the peace process".

Hamas, following a de facto truce but yet to formally ratify a ceasefire, said there should be no Palestinian coordination with Israel on the pullout because of Sharon's intention to keep parts of the West Bank.

Israel says its barrier is a security line, not a political boundary, that stops suicide bombers. Palestinians call it a land grab and the World Court has ruled it illegal.

The back-to-back cabinet decisions are widely expected to play a role in shaping future borders between peoples locked in bloody conflict for the past 4-1/2 years.

Sharon's plan calls for Israel's first removal of settlements from land captured in the 1967 Middle East war where Palestinians want to establish an independent state.

Even with cabinet backing, Sharon's opponents could still use a pending budget vote to bring down his government and put off evacuation indefinitely. He is trying to muster support and if he fails by the end of March, elections must be called.

Sharon will also have to contend with Palestinian anger at the decision to push forward with construction of the West Bank barrier. Ministers voted 20-1, with one abstention, to encompass two settlement clusters near Jerusalem.

"It pre-empts and prejudges issues reserved for the final status negotiations," Erekat told Reuters.

Palestinians remain worried Sharon wants to quit impoverished Gaza only to annex areas around more populous West Bank settlement blocs.

Some 8500 settlers live alongside 1.3 million Palestinians in Gaza compared to 230,000 settlers and 2.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank.

Commentators said Sharon brought both issues to the cabinet to neutralise international criticism of the barrier route by coupling it with a decision to uproot settlements.

- REUTERS