Wednesday, August 3 2005 18:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Jerusalem: Indian immigrants form the largest ethnic group of newcomers living in the Gaza Strip, which is slated for evacuation under Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's controversial disengagement plan.

The region has 146 members of the Bnei Menashe tribe, who immigrated to Israel from Manipur and Mizoram during the past decade, closely followed by 144 French immigrants, figures released by the Absorption Ministry showed.

Some 220 immigrants from the erstwhile Soviet Union live in the areas marked for evacuation but mainly in the four isolated settlements in the northern West Bank.

As per the ministry statistics, a total of 620 people who immigrated to Israel since 1989 are settled in areas to be evacuated. Out of this 629, 488 live in the Gaza Strip and 137 in the northern West Bank.

A small group of Bnei Menashe community members, around 30, living in the Gaza Strip settlement of Neveh Dekalim, have reportedly approached the Disengagement Administration to be shifted to Givat Avni, a community in the lower Galilee in the north, not far from the biblical tribal territory of Menashe.

The Secretary of Bnei Menashe Council in Israel, Tzvi Khaute, however, refuted media reports saying, "The desire of one person from the community was presented by the media as the will of the entire community members living in Neveh Dekalim".

"The Bnei Menashe community will stand by the settler community in opposing the evacuation plan. We have been so well treated and absorbed in this large family, in both, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, that there is no question of betraying them at this crucial juncture", Khaute told PTI.