Take the settlers' rubble, Israel told
Abraham Rabinovich, Jerusalem
April 22, 2005
THE Palestinian Authority will demand that Israel, in evacuating settlers from the Gaza Strip, also destroy some of their buildings and take the rubble with them, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

It quoted an unnamed Palestinian minister yesterday as saying the authority would survey the thousands of structures in the settlements and decide which it wanted to keep "for the development of the Palestinian economy".

Under international law, the minister said, Israel would be obliged to demolish the remainder and remove the rubble in order to restore the land to the condition it was in when captured in the 1967 Six Day War.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Israeli journalists earlier this week that the detached, single-family houses the Israelis had built in the settlements were not something the Palestinians needed.

He did not indicate, however, that he would demand their removal.

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