Israel sacks officers opposing pullout

The Israeli army has dismissed six reservist officers for threatening to disobey an order to evacuate illegal settlements under a proposed Gaza pullout plan.


An army spokeswoman said on Monday that the armed forces took any refusal to obey orders very seriously.

The dismissals come in the face of a threat of dissent in military ranks over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to remove all illegal Israeli settlements from Gaza as part of disengagement from conflict with the Palestinians.

The six dismissed officers were the highest ranking of a group of 34, all colonists living in the West Bank, who published a letter in a newspaper last week calling any order to implement the Gaza plan as illegal.

The officers had refused to renounce the letter and were dismissed from their command, but retained their ranks, a military spokeswoman said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/826468C0-82F6-4258-907C-008543958B56.htm