Settlers leave quietly

Press, 5 March 1982, Page 6

Settlers leave quietly

NZPA-Reuter Yamit, Sinai The Israeli Army began evicting illegal squatters from northern Sinai yesterday, launching a dawn raid on a tiny encampment of ultra-nationalists who are trying to stop the territory being handed back to Egypt. For its first operation, the Army chose the ramshackle settlement of Chavar Adar, breaking down doors with axes and crowbars and carrying away 60 men, women, and children. The squatters burnt tyres but offered no serious resistance as they were hauled off to buses and driven north to a military camp inside Israel, eyewitnesses said. The Defence Minister (Mr Ariel Sharon), who has taken personal charge of the Sinai evacuation, said earlier that the Army would pull down illegal settlements well ahead of the April 25 deadline for the handover of Sinai to Egypt under the Camp David treaties.

Organisers of the “stop the withdrawal from Sinai movement" based in Yamit acknowledged they had been taken by surprise and had failed to carry out threats to “saturate Sinai” with opponents of the evacuation. Yuval Ne’eman, one of the movement’s leaders, told reporters the campaign against withdrawal was “a lost war” but said squatters would continue to offer passive resistance every time troops tried to clear the illegal settlements dotted round this desert township. .

Mr Ne’eman heads the extreme nationalist Tehiya (Renaissance) Party, which on Wednesday mustered only four votes in the Kntsset (Parliament), for a heavily defeated motion condemning Government handling of the evacuation.

Army roadblocks yesterday stopped supporters joining the squatters. At one checkpoint in the Gaza Strip a disconsolate group of teenage activists said they would camp by the roadside until they were allowed through to Sinai.