Another Victory for Sinai Settlers, JTA, Jan. 19, 1982.

Ultra-nationalist squatters at Yamit and members of the “Halt the Sinai Withdrawal” movement won another victory over the government last Friday, when the Defense Ministry ordered a contractor to halt work on removing a war memorial to soldiers of an armored corps unit erected on the site of a major 1967 battle at Yamit.

Although parents of the soldiers in whose memory the memorial bears their names agreed to its removal to inside Israel proper, asking merely that the new monument be ready by next Memorial Day in May, Yamit diehards claimed the monument was “theirs” and refused to allow its dismantling to proceed.

The army had planned to use elements of the old statue in the new structure. But the Defense Ministry has again given way to threats of disturbances by Yamit settlers and squatters and ordered a halt to the work. Earlier last week the government reached a compromise with the settlers to halt further dismantling of farm buildings and equipment slated for relocation areas, and to remove only buildings and equipment already dismantled.