Dozens of Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip have sought details of compensation on offer under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for closing settlements in the Palestinian territory.
Israel's cabinet on June 6th approved in principle the plan to "disengage" from conflict with Palestinians by scrapping all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank by the end of 2005. Further votes will be taken next year on implementing a four-stage pullout.
The interest in the compensation offer, just a week after the plan was approved, was the first indication that at least some settlers would leave willingly despite insistence by their leaders that buying them out was not an option.
Sources said dozens of settlers, most from the enclaves slated for removal in the northern West Bank and the rest from Gaza, contacted Sharon's office following news the government was preparing to issue cash advances.
Israel plans to pay an average of $300,000 per family in compensation to settlers who leave voluntarily, government officials said on Friday. The sum would be enough to buy a one-family house or large apartment in many Israeli towns.
Cash advances could be available by August under a draft formula charted by government committees working on details of the plan, with final compensation calculations likely by November, the officials said.
Mr Sharon today told the cabinet he intended to make sure the pullout kept to its timetable. "I told those in charge of the committees to start work without delay," he said.
Mr Josh Hasten, a spokesman for the YESHA council, an umbrella organisation for the 140 settlements Israel has built on land it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, said he knew some people were investigating a payout.
But a spokesman for settlers in Gaza said most of the 7,500 Israelis living among 1.3 million Palestinians there had signed a declaration refusing to leave or negotiate payouts.