Peat Sadeh, Gaza Strip ? Residents of a small Jewish settlement said Sunday they’ve struck a deal to move to a village inside Israel, giving a boost to the government’s contentious Gaza pullout plan by becoming the first community to agree to be evacuated.

Peat Sadeh, a tiny, upscale farming village tucked into the southwest corner of Gaza about a mile from the Mediterranean Sea, raised the ire of hard-line settler leaders, who are mounting a campaign against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to remove all 21 settlements from Gaza and four from a part of the West Bank next year.

Sharon’s hard-line coalition government fell apart over his sudden policy shift a year ago, forcing him to try to reconstitute his team with the moderate Labor Party, his traditional rival.

In early 2004, Sharon abruptly abandoned decades of work for settlement construction and expansion, calling Gaza’s settlements “untenable” because only 8,200 Israelis live there among more than 1 million Palestinians in the impoverished, crowded seaside territory.

Israelis, in contrast, have lived well in Gaza, but their settlements have always been a sore point with the Palestinians. In recent years, mortars and rockets fired by militants in Gaza have rained down on them, and infiltration attempts have multiplied.

At Peat Sadeh, affluence is evident in the neat houses and expensive cars parked outside. Residents are farmers and say they do considerable business with Palestinian neighbors.

“Sharon built this community,” said Ella Amin, 39. “He hoped that it would be one of the most beautiful in the area, but the uprising ruined all of our dreams.”

Yonatan Bassi, director of the government administration overseeing the Gaza pullout, said the evacuation deal with the residents of Peat Sadeh was reached last week.

He said the settlement’s 20 families, joined by five families from other settlements, would move to Mavkiim, a farming village near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, beginning in March.

Israeli settler Vicki Sabaj hangs laundry Sunday outside her house in the southern Gaza Strip Jewish settlement Peat Sadeh. Twenty families from the settlement have finalized agreements with the government to move, and the community will be the first dismantled under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan, an Israeli government official said Sunday.

Residents said they’re leaving reluctantly.

“I’m still against it,” said Vicki Sabaj, 56, referring to the pullout, “but there’s no choice. At least I’ll go together with my friends.” She did not believe she’d be safer inside Israel. “If I leave, the border moves with me,” she said. Mavkiim is about 4 miles from the Gaza border.

While the Peat Sadeh deal is the first under the government’s withdrawal plan, Bassi said officials were negotiating with a “great number” of settlers willing to leave. He declined to give numbers.

Gaza settler spokesman Eran Sternberg disputed Bassi’s claim, saying most settlers oppose the pullout.