Jewish settlers could start leaving Gaza in two months under a withdrawal timetable proposed by a government committee, setting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on a collision course with the powerful settler lobby.
The schedule, which envisages completion of a Gaza pullout by October 1, 2005, inflamed Jewish settlers and their powerful political allies who threatened to step up efforts to bring down the Sharon government.
Sources in Sharon's office said he had not yet approved the timeline, drawn up by the National Security Council and adopted by a steering committee overseeing the Gaza withdrawal.
However, the timetable was in accord with comments by Sharon that there would be no Israelis in Gaza by the end of 2005.
"Maybe there will be people who will leave but I know the majority will not agree," Gaza settler spokesman Eran Sternberg told Reuters. He said most of the 7,500 settlers in Gaza had signed a declaration refusing to leave or negotiate payouts.
Sternberg said the settlers were pinning their hopes on the possibility Sharon could be forced out of office long before any evacuations of settlements began in earnest.
Hard-liners in Sharon's Likud party reacted angrily over the timeline, calling it an attempt to entice settlers to leave before cabinet approval of the start of settlement evacuation.
Under the proposed timetable, Gaza settlers could start to leave voluntarily this August and have until September 1, 2005 to move out before the army evacuated them by force, the document said.
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