Most Jewish settlers in Gaza have agreed to move to Israel if their bid to resist evacuation fails, a newspaper said yesterday, signalling a possible breakthrough for government efforts to ensure a smooth pullout. Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s biggest daily, said at least 1,000 families from the Gush Katif settler bloc — more than half of 8,500 Israelis in the Gaza Strip — had signed a pledge in principle to move en masse to a new community in Israel.

“If, God forbid, the uprooting goes ahead, we would like the bloc to move together,” Yedioth quoted the settlers as saying in a letter to be presented at Israel’s High Court of Justice, which has been hearing petitions over the “disengagement plan”.

“We seek unity, not divisiveness,” they wrote. But the settlers stressed that they would continue to resist the plan to remove them from the territory, which they see as a biblical birthright. Polls show that most Israelis support the plan to give up the Gaza settlements, which is also backed by Washington as a possible step towards reviving peacemaking with the Palestinians.

<B>Deadline to sign up </B>

Residents of the main Gaza settlement bloc of Gush Katif have been offered the chance of moving to Nitzanim, a strip of prime real estate some 40 km (25 miles) up the coast. The evacuation is due to begin in mid-August. A lawyer for the Gush Katif settlers, Yitzhak Meron, told Yedioth they wanted clarification from the government on the full terms for moving to Nitzanim. “Amid all the uncertainty, people want to take their fate into their own hands,” he said. Settler leaders were not immediately available for comment.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni had made yesterday the deadline for Gush Katif settlers to sign up for Nitzanim or risk losing relocation perks such as priority on interim housing, school arrangements, and other amenities. In recent months, smaller groups of Gaza settlers agreed to move voluntarily to Israel, but their leaders said they would still put up passive resistance to soldiers sent to evacuate them under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal plan.

Many hardline settlers have insisted they would spurn any talks on relocation and have vowed to stay put. Right-wing protests across the Jewish state have raised fears that the pullbacks could spark civil strife. The removal of the Gaza settlements and four of 120 in the West Bank, would be the first from land where Palestinians want a state. But they fear that Israel will at the same time strengthen its hold on the occupied West Bank — home to about 240,000 settlers. Israel captured both territories in the 1967 Middle East war.

In Washington, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would ask U.S. President George W. Bush at a White House meeting on yesterday to fulfil his vision of a viable, sovereign state. Abbas wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that Palestinians did not see the Gaza withdrawal as a gesture of peace. “Rather, it diverts attention away from Israel’s settlement expansion of the West Bank ... and Palestinians fear the Gaza Strip will become a large prison,” he wrote.

<B>Dan WILLIAMS</B>

BUILDING RELATIONS

<B>Sharon makes gesture to Abbas</B>

■ In a speech to the most powerful US pro-Israel group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, Sharon also proposed coordinating with the Palestinian Authority Israel’s planned mid-August pullout from the Gaza Strip. He said such cooperation would enable Israel and the Palestinians “to embark on a new era of trust and build our relations with the Palestinian Authority”. In a gesture to Abbas, who met US President George W. Bush yesterday, Sharon said he would seek the approval of his cabinet for the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners after he returns home later this week. Israel freed 500 prisoners in February as part of understandings reached with Abbas at a Feb. 8 summit when the two sides declared a ceasefire. The prisoner releases were intended to boost Abbas among the Palestinian public, who see the prisoners as fighters for freedom from Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. But Sharon hammered home his bedrock position that there could be no progress on the US-backed peace road map until Abbas disarmed and dismantled Palestinian militant groups.