JERUSALEM, Aug 28: Israel plans to take in most inhabitants of a Gaza Strip village shunned by Palestinians as a haven for spies who have helped the Jewish state during nearly four decades of occupation, officials said on Sunday.

They said that 200 Dahaniya residents, a mix of Palestinians and Bedouin Arabs from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, would move to Israel en masse and receive the same state compensation as 8,500 Jewish settlers evacuated from Gaza earlier this month.

“Those who are moving for the most part either have Israeli citizenship or are undergoing naturalization,” defence ministry official Shlomo Dror said. “They will receive hundreds of thousands of dollars per family in relocation payouts.”

A cluster of shanties with its own Israeli army garrison, Dahaniya has been home to some Palestinian informers who fled vengeful kin after helping Israel track — and eventually capture or kill — militants in Gaza and the West Bank.

Many of the village’s Bedouin residents, similarly recruited for cash or the promise of administrative favours, served Israeli occupation authorities in the Sinai peninsula before it was handed back to Egypt under a 1979 peace accord.

Israeli officials, as well as Dahaniyans, insist that informers left the village long ago for new lives in the Jewish state. But Palestinians consider all 300 residents to be Israeli spies.

Dahaniya Mayor Shtiwe Shtiwe Ermillat confirmed a relocation deal with Israel had been signed. Those villagers not included would be absorbed by the Palestinian Authority, he said.—Reuters