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Israeli settlers file suitAP PHOTOA Palestinian youth looks on Tuesday as a masked gunman from Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement stands with his rifle during a demonstration in the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his party delegates Tuesday the withdrawal plan from all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four enclaves in the West Bank is under way and will met the timetable he has setSharon forges ahead with Gaza pulloutJERUSALEM (AP) — A defiant Ariel Sharon faced down detractors in his own party Tuesday, insisting he would implement his embattled Gaza pullout, and rebellious settlers j filed suit against a plan to give advance payments to families : who leave their West Bank andGaza homes.' The prime minister’s mere ' mention of the term “disen-I gagement plan” at a Likud E Party convention set off sever-; al minutes of boos and cat-: calls. Sharon’s party has votedagainst the pullout twice in different frameworks, but ' Sharon was adamant.Ignoring the noisy protest, he said, “The disengagement plan ... has started on its way, ? and it will be carried out exactly according to the timetable approved by the - Cabinet.”t- Sharon lost his parliamen-e tary majority over his plan to if evacuate all 21 Jewish settle-r ments in Gaza and four in the i- West Bank next year. His own t, party and traditional supporters — settlers and their back-f- ers — rebelled, and pro-settler e Cabinet ministers quit his e coalition.e In May, Likud membersvoted the plan down in a nonbinding referendum, and a few weeks later, a Likud convention vetoed Sharon’s plan to add the moderate Labor Party to his coalition — another blow to the pullout plan.Sharon has said the pullout would reduce friction with the Palestinians and head off international peace initiatives. In his speech before the Likud gathering Tuesday, he said, “Israel is today the initiator, and in the absence of a partner we will act to change the political situation in Israel’s favor.”Sharon refuses to negotiate with the Palestinian leadership, charging that Yasser Arafat’s administration is involved in terrorism.The government is poised to give advance payments to settlers who agree to leave before the government deadline sometime next year, and officials assume that many of the 8,500 settlers will accept the offer.Settlers have organized protests against the pullout, forming a “human chain” on Aug. 25, stretching 55 miles from Gaza to Jerusalem.
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Odessa American
Odessa, Texas, US
Wed, Sep 22, 2004
Page 42
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Wayne H.
NA, 28 Oct 2023
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Odessa American
