ISRAEL Settlers vow fight in razing of outposts

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon signed the evacuation order Sunday.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Jewish settlers vowed to oppose Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's order to dismantle four unauthorized West Bank outposts, warning they will resist if soldiers come to evacuate their communities.
Meanwhile, Israeli security officials warned today that militant groups are planning a major attack on New Year's Eve, possibly targeting holy sites, kindergartens, apartment buildings and hospitals.
Police have been told to prepare for the possibility of an attack by air, sea or land involving simultaneous suicide bombings, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Police declined to comment.
Sharon signed the settlement evacuation order Sunday, a move that his justice minister called encouraging but only the start of what must be a wider push to get rid of the outposts. Only one of the four, Ginnot Arieh, is inhabited.
Israel is required to dismantle more than 100 West Bank outposts under the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, but has not fulfilled its obligation.
Will appeal
Oren Brund, the secretary of Ginnot Arieh, said the 10 families who live in the hilltop neighborhood would appeal to the High Court. Settlers will oppose the evacuation if the court rules against them.
"The YESHA [Settlers'] Council will bring thousands of people here and we will not move," Brund told Israel Radio. "There will be a clash. ... There will not be a violent confrontation."
In the past, thousands of Jewish settlers have gathered at unauthorized outposts and clashed with soldiers and police officers who came to dismantle the hilltop neighborhoods. Troops were forced to drag settler men, women, children and teenagers from the area.
Housing Minister Effie Eitam, a strong advocate of the settlers, said today that he would support the dismantling of the outposts if they cannot be legalized.
"If in the end after all the processes are exhausted, it will not be possible to give legal permits to these outposts, then what will not be legal, we will not be able to support," he told Army Radio.
U.S. pressure
The United States has pressured Israel to dismantle the outposts, many of them no more than a trailer and an Israeli flag on a barren hilltop. The four outposts Sharon ordered removed are scattered throughout the West Bank. At least one has been removed before, but was rebuilt.
Sharon is also under pressure from some members of his own government to remove the outposts.
"The dismantlement of three, four outposts, among them unpopulated outposts, doesn't solve the massive problem of the illegal outposts," Justice Minister Tommy Lapid told Israel Radio. "They [the outposts] ruin our relations with the Americans, they ruin our relations with the Europeans, they have no benefit ... Israel is dragging its feet."
In Gaza meanwhile, Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim on Sunday, Israeli military sources said. Israeli military sources said the Palestinians were firing mortars at the settlement.