Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to transfer the collaborators living in Al Daheena area, in the southern Gaza Strip, to the Tal Arad area in the Negev.
The decision came after the families of the collaborators appealed to the Israeli High Court to be transferred out of the Gaza Strip fearing revenge acts carried out by Palestinian residents.
Israeli bulldozers started preparing the infrastructure of the “collaborators village,†eight kilometers away from the Negev town of Arad.
Dr. Moty Brill, head of Arad municipality, reported that he was hoping the collaborators would be moved to Tel Aviv and expressed rejection at having them residing in his town.ÂÂ
Sharon decided to move the collaborators to Tal Arad without submitting the proposal to the government for approval.
Israel’s security cabinet on Monday decided to allow 40 collaborator families now living in the Gaza Strip to move into Israel.
The collaborator families currently live in the al-Daheena area, in the southern Gaza Strip. The ministers voted to allow them into Israel ‘in exchange for their services to the state of Israel.’
The 74 Palestinian collaborators living in a village that the army created for them in the southern Gaza Strip, appealed to the Israeli High Court in late June 2005. Through Israeli lawyers, they requested that they be evacuated from the Gaza Strip.
The collaborators are Bedouin families from the Sinai desert; some are bearers of Israeli identity cards.
The families appealed to the Israeli High Court to be allowed into Israel and to be granted legal status and residency rights. They also demanded compensation, similar to that which the Israeli state is paying to the evacuated settlers.
An Israeli source reported that these families will be allowed into Israel under temporary legal status, and that the army will level their homes while leveling the settlers’ homes in the Gaza Strip during the pullout.ÂÂ
The Israeli government tried to move the collaborators into Arabic towns in Israel, but the Arab residents resisted this decision and rejected having collaborators “who betrayed their own country and people†among them.
Over the last several months, Israel has been trying to pressure the P.A to keep the collaborators in the Gaza Strip and to guarantee their safety.ÂÂ
The collaborators fear that if they remain in the Gaza Strip after the Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian fighters and residents will take revenge and kill them.ÂÂ
Collaborators were behind the arrest of hundreds of Palestinians residents. Some were also involved in killing fighters or facilitating military activities that led to the assassination of fighters and activists or their arrest.
