Organizers of the “Halt the Sinai Withdrawal” campaign say that by the end of this month, two months before the final withdrawal date, the population of Yamit will have grown to between 7,000 and 8,000 or about three times the original maximum population of the settlement just on the Sinai side of the old international border.
They include the 400 original families who have so far refused to accept compensation offered them to resettle elsewhere in Israel. The movement says it is convinced that their very numbers will be enough to halt the withdrawal.
Special teams of movement technicians watch each day to see which houses are evacuated. They move in at night, change the locks and relink the severed water and electricity connections by-passing removed meters so that the new squatters do not have to pay for services.
The government, the Jewish Agency and the army have so far taken no steps to prevent the arrival of new squatters appearing every day.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
