MIDDLE EAST: Israel told Jewish settlers to leave nine West Bank outposts yesterday or be evicted, in what political sources called a calculated gesture by the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, before his US visit.
Settlers said they would make a last-minute appeal to Israel's highest court to block any attempt to remove them from outposts that have long been identified for removal under the stalled US-backed "road map" to peace with the Palestinians.
The settlers said they would not go quietly even if the High Court upheld eviction orders first issued two months ago.
US envoys are due in Israel next week to discuss Mr Sharon's proposal that Israel take unilateral steps to "disengage from" the Palestinians, by removing most Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip, if the "road map" process remains blocked.
Palestinians fear Israel may then take a permanent hold on large parts of the West Bank, depriving them of land seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and where they want a state.
The road map, a series of reciprocal steps meant to lead to peace and a Palestinian state, requires the Palestinian Authority to rein in militants; it foresees Israel freezing settlement-building in the occupied territories and taking down more than 100 outposts built since March 2001.
Palestinians were sceptical of seeing outposts removed: "We are used to announcements from the Israelis that never happen," Palestinian cabinet minister Mr Ghassan al-Khatib said.
Most countries regard all the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as illegal, but Israel disputes this. Some 7,500 settlers live in the Gaza Strip, home to 1.3 million Palestinians. About 230,000 settlers live in the West Bank, among more than two million Palestinians.
Many settlers believe they are cementing biblical claims to the land.
"As prime minister of Israel, he (Mr Sharon) should not be uprooting Jewish communities," a settler spokesman said.
A helicopter strike killed three militants from the Islamic Hamas group near a settlement in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
Israeli police were on high alert for possible suicide bombings after Hamas, sworn to destroy Israel, vowed revenge.
Israeli forces raiding the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah yesterday shot dead a 14-year-old Palestinian boy during heavy gunfire.
Hours earlier, a leading militant was killed in a mysterious explosion in Rafah. The Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees said their commander was killed by an Israeli missile. The army denied it.
The deadlock between Israelis and Palestinians has embarrassed the US administration, which had hoped its road map would revive Middle East peace talks that stalled in 2000.
Senior US officials are expected in Israel next week to prepare for a White House meeting between President Bush and Mr Sharon in late March or early April.
- (Reuters)