GAZA STRIP Israel offers cash for settlers' homes

Colin Powell and Palestinians question the reality of what Arafat says.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The government is in compensation talks with Jewish settlers to leave their homes, a lawyer said today, as Israel moved forward with its plan to dismantle settlements and withdraw its army from the Gaza Strip next year.
Meanwhile, Palestinians were waiting to see whether Yasser Arafat will live up to his bargain Tuesday giving his prime minister more authority, a deal that ended an immediate leadership crisis between the two men.
Embracing and smiling, the Palestinian leader and Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia patched up their differences at a meeting in Arafat's offices.
Qureia withdrew his 10-day-old resignation letter and prepared to take charge of part of the security forces formerly under Arafat's control.
The reconciliation was meant to calm demonstrations, kidnappings and the seizure or sacking of police stations and Palestinian Authority buildings that had thrown the Gaza Strip into turmoil.
Cynicism
But the promises Arafat made to defuse the crisis were vague and left Palestinians wondering whether real power would change hands.
"Today was a significant step in a long road," said Saeb Erekat, a Cabinet minister and peace negotiator. "Our people and the world will judge us in accordance with our deeds and not our words."
In the Gaza Strip early today, Israeli tanks and bulldozers cut off the coastal road and leveled surrounding agricultural fields and poultry farms, under heavy machine gun fire to keep residents away, Palestinian witnesses and officials said.
There were no reports of casualties.
The army said it was conducting "a pinpoint operation to destroy terrorist infrastructure" in the area, which is close to the Jewish settlement of Nitzarim and about one mile south of Gaza City.
"Why are they razing the farms here?" said Akram Shmalkh, 40, a farmer of grapes and figs. "Some of these trees are older than the drivers of the bulldozers."
Israeli Justice Ministry officials have promised the settlers that advance compensation payments could be paid within two months for those who voluntarily leave the Gaza Strip, said Joseph Tamir, representing about 90 families.
Questioning authority
Many of the 8,000 Gaza settlers say they will resist the plan announced by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to leave Gaza by September 2005, and the army is bracing to evacuate them by force.
Israel captured the Gaza Strip and West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war.
Tamir said the officials would not specify the size of the advances, nor promise that the funds would be large enough to allow settlers to purchase homes in other locations.
"They were playing their cards very close to the chest," Tamir said. "But an advance that does not reflect the ability to buy a new home is not realistic."
The agreement by Arafat and the Palestinian government was greeted with skepticism by everyone from world statesmen to Palestinians on the street.
Secretary of State Colin Powell called Arafat "the master of the ambiguous statement or the statement with the yo-yo string on it. It gets pulled back.
"There have been different statements almost on a daily basis, and I'll listen to and track and watch these statements, but what we are looking for is action, not statements," Powell told reporters on a trip to Europe and the Middle East.