The 150 settlers who sought to establish a settlement at Sebastia near Nablus on the West Bank averted a showdown with the government tonight by deciding to leave their encampment a few minutes before a government deadline. A spokesman for the settlers, most of them Orthodox, said they were not leaving of their own free will but that they did not want a confrontation with the Israel Defense Force. Defense Minister Shimon Peres had informed the 35 families, in line with a Cabinet decision Friday, that if they did not leave the place on their own volition, the government would use its authority to remove them.
The spokesman said they would not return directly to their homes but would go as a group to Jerusalem to press their demand for permission to create a settlement in the Samaria section, The spokesman said they planned to gather tonight near the Yeshiva of Rabbi Kook, a strong supporter of their attempt to create a settlement at Sebastia, there to stage a mass rally, proceeding from there to the Western Wall for prayer.
HOLIDAYS BAR EVICTION ACTION
Although the Cabinet acted promptly in deciding that the settlers had acted illegally and could not remain, no government action was taken because of, first, the Sabbath, and then Tisha B’av. The families had tried a similar effort last month but failed. On their second attempt they managed to evade an army cordon around the area, some eight miles northwest of Hebron. The settlers had made no secret of their plans, even informing Israeli officials. Several of the settlers met with Peres and with Minister Israel Galilee, but received only a repetition of the government position that there could be no settlements in the area without approval by government.
The settlers recruited hundreds of supporters who divided themselves into four separate convoys, each taking a different route. A fifth convoy was the real one, taking a route officials had not expected and successfully making their way to the chosen site. One group of settlers placed barbed wire around their encampment. Another erected tents for themselves and for the many children in the group. They then settled down for what proved to be a two-day stay.
SETTLERS CHAIN SELVES TO TREES
Informal negotiations initially undertaken by Menachem Beigin, a leader of the opposition Likud, with Peres, brought a suggestion to the settlers that they move to a site more to the east, on a slope leading to the Jordan Valley. But the formal warning from Peres contained no reference to the suggested alternative. Two groups of ten men each tied themselves with iron chains to a tree to bar any efforts by army troops to remove them by force. Then guests began to arrive, some 2,000 supporters, who included 18 members of the Knesset, including Beigin, Arik Sharon, Eytan Livni, Geulah Cohen, Yosef Tamir and others of the Likud, the National Religious Party and the Aguda groups.
As the army moved in equipment to evict the settlers, Knesset members began entreating the settlers to leave on their own volition. The Mayer of Nablus, Aziz el Masri declared there was rising resentment in the West Bank city against the settlement. The Mayor made a formal protest to the military governor who, the Mayor said, had given him assurances previously that there would be no settlement. By Yitzhak Shargil
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