Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Israel to transfer Gaza Strip settlements to Palestinians By RAVI NESSMAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS JERUSALEM — Israel will transfer Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians intact, the defense minister decided Thursday, reversing an earlier plan to destroy all homes during this summer’s withdrawal. The decision, which would need Cabinet approval, was made in a meeting with top Israeli security officials. Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim said international reaction and environmental concerns led Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz to change his earlier decision to knock down the homes. “Taking all those things into account, the defense minister made a recommendation not to destroy the private houses,” Boim told Army Radio. 1 UC IJUCSUU11 U1 WUcll IU uu wilil the hundreds of red-roofed houses scattered throughout Gaza in 21 settlements has vexed the Israeli government for months. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his top aides also toured the Nitzanim area north of the Gaza Strip to survey a possible relocation site for the settlers. He spent about 15 minutes in an area north of the town of Nitzan, checking maps with his aides, before leaving. Sharon said he would have an answer about the plan in the coming days. Mofaz initially had recommended destruction of the homes and greenhouses in the settlements. Israel had wanted to avoid scenes of jubilant Palestinians taking over the settlers’ homes. But many expressed concern that destroying the houses would damage the environment, make the pullout process longer and more expensive than planned, and generate international criticism. In 1982, Israel was heavily criticized for razing the settlement of Yamit and others when it withdrew from the Sinai desert under terms of a peace treaty with Egypt. On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Israel not to engage in “wanton destruction” of the settlers’ homes. Under Mofaz’s new plan, the settlement synagogues and ritual baths would be dismantled and moved to Israel. The mezuzahs — religious objects attached to door frames — would also be removed. The buildings will be handed over, either to the Palestinians or to a world agency, once the evacuation is completed, according to the plan. The army bases would all be destroyed. Palestinians have not yet decided what to do with the evacuated areas. Some wanted the houses to remain, while others argued it would be better to replace them with higher-density housing projects. Some officials feared the houses would be doled out as perks to Palestinian officials. Palestinian officials repeatedly have complained that Israeli was not negotiating the pullout with them and criticized Mofaz’s unilateral decision. tc'T’i i n • i i 1 i nzy nave uiusiicu uic negotiations with themselves, and now they are trying to tell us what to do,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. “We cannot afford to have settlers’ homes in Gaza ... in the densely populated Gaza Strip. Gaza is the most densely populated area on Earth,” he said, complaining that the houses are too big. Meanwhile, Palestinian militants fired a rocket from northern Gaza toward the Israeli town of Sderot. The rocket exploded harmlessly in a field, but Israeli officials said it was a sign that Palestinians are not moving against militants. Since Israeli and Palestinian leaders declared an end to more than four years of bloodshed on Feb. 8, such rocket attacks have been rare. Mofaz called the attack a “most serious event” and charged that it was “painful proof’ that the Palestinian leadership was not acting to rein in militants, despite its declarations about restoring order. Nobody claimed responsibility for the rocket launching. ur\/im cDAvcc/Tur AccnriATrn doccc A sign advertising new housing units is seen next to a building under construction in the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim, just outside of Jerusalem on Thursday. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said earlier this week Israel should press forward with a building plan to connect this largest West Bank Jewish settlement to Jerusalem, despite U.S. and Palestinian objections. Palestinian officials said they were investigating. Government officials hope the Nitzanim plan will weaken settler opposition, but security officials have expressed concerns.that some might resist evacuation violently. Police said Thursday they have stepped up their level of alert at the hilltop holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Security officials fear Jewish extremists, who are planning a rally there Sunday, would try to attack the site in an effort to stop the pullout. Speaking later in Tel Aviv, Sharon said that though no one wants to leave his home, now that the government and parliament have approved the pullout, “the residents also understand they must move to other places.” Some Gaza settlers have said their resistance to the withdrawal could crumble if the government moved their communities en masse to the Nitzanim area and gave them suitable farmland. The plan also has angered environmentalists, worried that the new communities there would destroy sensitive sand dunes and nature reserves. Dozens protested before Sharon’s visit near the Nitzanim nature reserve, with rolling sand dunes, water pools and long stretches of pristine beaches. North Korean nuclear materials I went to Libya, U.S. envoy says I By BURT HERMAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea — Stung by the lapses of intelligence on Iraq’s weapons programs, a top U.S. diplomat insisted Thursday that Washington has concrete evidence North Korean nuclear material went to Libya’s since shuttered atomic arms operation. He warned that North Korea’s cash-strapped communist regime could still be a risk for a further spread of atomic arms technology and materials. Christopher Hill, the main U.S. envoy on the North Korea nuclear standoff, told The Associated Press that even though Libya got the nuclear material from a Pakistani black market nuclear network, the North Koreans must have known where their material would end up. Hill, U.S. ambassador to South Korea who leaves next week to become assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said there is “physical evidence that the material that arrived in Libya had started its journey” in North Korea. He said the evidence was “beyond my reasonable doubt.” It was the strongest on-the record claim by a U.S. official that such evidence exists. For months, U.S. officials have stopped short of saying publicly they had physical evidence about a North Korea-Libya link. That raised questions about Washington’s case, especially after the intelligence failures on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Hill didn’t say what the evidence was or where it came from. But Libya agreed with the U.S. and British governments in late 2003 to shut down its programs to develop atomic and chemical weapons and allowed in outside inspectors. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency have said that Libya obtained nuclear material from Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. The U.N. agency said Thursday its inspectors are still interviewing Libyans about the atomic weapons work, but all Libya’s nuclear equipment has been destroyed or dismantled and removed from the country. Asked about Hill’s comments linking the material in Libya to North Korea, Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the IAEA in Vienna, Austria, said: “It’s a possibility, but it’s difficult for us to verify because we no longer have any inspectors there” in North Korea. In Washington, a State Department official who tracks dangerous weapons said the Libyans did not necessarily know the origin of the material. Hill wouldn’t go so far as to say ^ U.S. intelligence had proof of direct contact or payments jj between Libya and North Korea. But he said the Pyonyang regime, 1 which claims to have nuclear weapons and has been struggling with years of food shortages, might :rS not be done pitching its atomic i wares around the world. “This is not a regime that gives you a lot of confidence that they ^ know where to draw the line,” he said. North Korea is widely believed to have shared its missile technology with Pakistan, its diplomats have been implicated in drug trafficking and the communist government has i even been linked to counterfeit , currency. Hill said there were some signs TL of movement toward resuming six nation talks on North Korean nuclear disarmament, referring to this week’s visit to China by Kang Sok Ju, the North’s first vice £ foreign minister who has been directly involved in the nuclear issue. ■ FIGHT Continued from page 1 the s— hit the fan.” The police’s arrival cooled the fight down a little. “When the police showed up, it was just chaos. Everything was broken over there, and there was blood everywhere,” he said. “They tear-gassed everybody. I guess they’re still resolving it outside. But the fighting, once the cops showed up the fighting pretty much stopped itself. The fighters disappeared. Nobody wanted to get arrested.” Felton said the police used pepper spray rather than tear gas. USC police had no comment. Police entered the building with a stretcher but it is unclear whether anyone was severely injured. Comments on this stoty? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu ■ SURVEY Continued from page 1 the book of Genesis are actually metaphors for different eras in Earth’s history. “It’s not that creationists don’t necessarily know or understand the science involved in evolution. It’s that they have a specific set of r beliefs and science is-usually only involved when selective theories are used to accommodate those beliefs,” said second-year english student Drew Cutright. Evans said he didn’t know “whether the survey results indicated a shift” in the American public’s system of beliefs. Tourney said he didn’t think so, saying creationism has been very “durable” in America — so much so that every poll he’d seen since the early 1980s showed a nation divided on the issue. Ciitright said it was wrong to offer survey respondents so few options. “Only giving two choices on such a broad theological and theoretical question is very limiting,” she said. “People whose opinions fall somewhere in between the two extremes of the spectrum are pigeonholed into one group or the other. It leaves no room for reconciling science with theology.” ¥ Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknavs@gwm.sc.edu TH#%AMECOCK Online five days a week. Bonus. www.dailygamccock.com -——^—I