Last update - 00:00 15/02/2008
Former Gaza Strip settlers move into new outpost in West Bank
By The Associated Press
Nine Israeli families have moved to a valley deep in the West Bank, setting down six trailer homes and promising Friday to bring more to the disputed area the Palestinians want for a future state.
The action - funded in part by a private U.S. group - is the latest Israeli settlement activity to anger Palestinians as peace negotiators try to reach a final agreement outlining borders. U.S. President George W. Bush hopes to get the sides to complete a deal by the end of the year.
About two dozen Israelis from the former Gaza Strip settlement of Shirat Hayam have moved into Maskiot despite a government decision last year to freeze plans to build a new settlement there.
The international community criticized Israel in 2006 when it announced plans to establish Maskiot, saying the project violated Israel's commitments under an internationally-sponsored peace plan not to set up new settlements.
Yossi Hazut, the settler leader at Maskiot, said 28 families are waiting to move in when more trailer homes arrive. He said his group decided to move in after being forcibly evacuated from Gaza in 2005.
If the settlers can't protect Israel from its southern flank in Gaza, he said, at least now they can guard its eastern side on this desert land known as the Jordan Valley.
"We hope that we will be able to bring all the families here," Hazut said, holding his 1-year-old daughter, Shir, while his wife made pizza.
Maskiot has a total of 150 acres (60 hectares) of land where olive trees grow and date trees will be planted, said Hazut, who grew up in a tightly-guarded Gaza settlement.
A sign in English and Hebrew on one of the homes read: This caravan was built in part through a grant from One Israel Fund. The organization's Web site says it is a New-York based charitable group helping Israeli settlers who were evacuated from Gaza.
While Hazut said he understood that the government had frozen construction of permanent homes at Maskiot, he said that a defense ministry official who had visited him earlier in the day Friday did not say the government would block any attempt to expand the community.
Israel's Defense Ministry oversees settlement activity. A call requesting
comment from a ministry spokesman was not returned Friday.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, said Friday that Israel would abide by its commitments in the internationally-backed peace plan known as the road map.
There will be no new settlements, Regev said.
Israel agreed in the plan not to establish new settlements nor expand existing ones and to dismantle dozens of unauthorized outposts established by settlers to prevent land from being transferred to the Palestinians.
Israel has not taken down any of the outposts, and Palestinians fear they will eventually become established communities.
Related articles: