Sharon: Gaza Settlers to Leave By Next Summer

JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Sharon said yesterday all 8,200 Jewish settlers will be pulled out of the Gaza Strip starting next summer, and ordered a troop pullout from a Gaza refugee camp, the focus of a month long offensive.Mr. Sharon said next year’s settlement evacuation would be completed within 12 weeks despite opposition from settlers and their backers. After nightfall, settlers demonstrated across Israel against the pullout. Israel Radio reported that the pullout of the settlers would begin in May, but participants in the closed parliamentary meeting Mr. Sharon addressed quoted him as saying only that it would start in the summer.In Washington, the Bush administration renewed its approval of a planned pullout from Gaza and said the timing was up to Mr. Sharon’s government but hoped the withdrawal will be a link to a peace based on the “road map” plan.The original “unilateral disengagement” plan, approved in June, called for a four-stage pullout beginning in summer 2005. Mr. Sharon tried to advance the date to the beginning of 2005, but a month ago reverted to the original formula. Last night, Mr. Sharon and the defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, ordered a redeployment in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have been carrying out their largest Gaza operation in four years of fighting. Defense officials said troops were ordered to pull out of the Jebaliya refugee camp.[Yesterday, however, Israel appeared to be on its own collision course as tens of thousands of demonstrators opposed to Mr. Sharon’s proposed evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip turned out in a show of force, according to the Daily Telegraph.]Army Radio said the redeployment would amount to a pullout northern Gaza, restoring the situation before the invasion September 30. However, the officials said the army would react quickly if Palestinian Arab terrorists resume rocket fire at Israeli towns.

Sharon: Gaza Settlers to Leave By Next Summer

Sharon: Gaza Settlers to Leave By Next Summer

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