In an effort to get more settlers to cooperate with the Israeli government’s official Disengagement Administration, the government has decided that only those who file applications for compensation will receive payment by the date of disengagement, Israeli sources said on Wednesday.
Settlers who don’t apply to the Disengagement Administration, or Sela, will not be compensated, Sela head Yonatan Bassi told a special joint meeting of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday.
By next week, Bassi said, the number of committees working to check the eligibility of applicants and meet the legal obligation of paying them compensation within 60 days of their initial application will be doubled from five to 10.
Almost 400 settler families have applied so far, according to Bassi, and 20 to 30 new applications are coming in every day – signs of increased interest among many settlers in the terms the government is offering, despite the current chaos anti-pullout activists among them are causing.
The Disengagement Administration is also in negotiations with another 500 families in several groups that are seeking collective relocation to existing communities, Bassi added.
Most early applications came from northern West Bank settlements slated for evacuation – specifically from Ganim and Kadim settlements – and from settlements in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Bassi. Early applicants  have already been compensated, he said.
