MIDDLE EAST: Israel could stay in most of the West Bank for an extended period of time after a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday in a newspaper interview, stoking Palestinian fears that he plans to "trade" Gaza for the West Bank.
Mr Sharon's comments came on the bloodiest day in the West Bank in two years, with 10 Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli troops. At least six were militants, but one of the fatalities was an 11-year-old girl.
According to the disengagement plan Mr Sharon has hatched, all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip will be evacuated as well as four in the West Bank by the end of 2005. While it is widely accepted that the Israeli leader wants to hang on to large chunks of the West Bank, where some 120 settlements with a population of over 220,000 are located, he has been short on detail.
But in his most explicit comments so far, he told the daily Yedioth Ahronoth: "It is very possible there will be a long period when nothing else happens." For there to be any further progress, Mr Sharon said there would have to be a change in "Palestinian strategy", of which he did not detect the "tiniest sign".
Palestinian leaders said Mr Sharon's comments provided further evidence of his intention to use a withdrawal from Gaza to persuade the Americans and the rest of the international community to allow him to hold on to large swathes of the West Bank.