TEL AVIV – More than 400 settler families from the Gaza Strip have signed an official agreement signaling their readiness to move together as a community into Israel ahead of a planned pullout from Gaza later this summer, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported on Monday.
A document obtained by Yedioth details the procedure of moving the settlers into three possible locations inside Israel. Each family will receive a one dunum (0.24-acre) plot of land.
About 426 families from Gush Katif, Gaza largest settlement bloc, signed the deal on May 29 and have chosen Nitzanim, a coastal agricultural town near Gaza, as their preferred new home.
About three or four community blocs are expected to be built inside the town, which will include public, educational and religious institutions.
Government negotiating
The government has been pushing settlers slated for evacuation from all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank to agree to leave their homes ahead of its planned pullout in August and has been working with their attorneys to negotiate alternative housing.
Each family is expected to receive up to USD 500,000 in compensation. About 9,000 Jews live in Gaza among 1.3 million Palestinians.
Also, several settlers in Gaza have expressed willingness to copy their neighborhood in the settlement of Nissanit to the Israeli city of Ashkelon.
Settlers and staunch rightists claim the West Bank and Gaza as their biblical birthright and have vowed to resist the withdrawal. Palestinians want the land as part of a future state.
