Israel sealed off its Gaza settlements on Sunday night as a deadline passed for residents to leave their homes in a historic move that for the first time will see the razing of Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory.
A combined force of about 50 000 troops and police is to be deployed over the coming days, in Israel’s largest military operation outside of a war. They will remove those settlers who refuse to leave of their own accord. The army says it hopes to complete the clearing of 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank within three weeks.
But in a sign of the strength of feeling the military will confront, hundreds of young people waylaid army vehicles outside the largest settlement, Neve Dekalim, as the midnight deadline passed and smashed windows and slashed tyres. In one van the crowd found thousands of aerial photographs and maps, apparently to be used for the pullout, and made bonfires of the documents.
The Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, has described the abandonment of settlements that have been at the heart of Israel’s expansionist policies since 1967 as a ”painful sacrifice” for peace.
But while the move is generally recognised as historic, its intent is disputed. The Palestinians and some of Sharon’s leftwing critics say he plans to use the removal of about 8 000 settlers as a means to entrench Israeli control over much larger settlements that are home to about 400 000 Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Sharon is scheduled to address the country on Monday evening to call on settlers to abide by the law and leave Gaza voluntarily, and for the rest of the country to maintain unity despite bitter denunciations by opponents of ”disengagement” who accuse him of withdrawing ”under fire” from Palestinian militants.
In the first phase of the removals, the army and police intend to launch Operation Brotherly Hand this morning; the security forces will visit about 1 500 settler homes to persuade remaining residents to leave before Wednesday, after which they will be removed by force. The authorities believe that more than half will go in the next two days.
But leaders of the largest settlement block in Gaza, Gush Katif, held a public meeting on Saturday evening at which they said they would lock the gates of the settlements to keep the army out, and called for a mass mobilisation on the streets to prevent today’s military operation.
”The army is counting on our leaving on Monday and Tuesday,” said Rafi Sari. ”That stage is really important to them, but we’re not cooperating. We won’t leave and we won’t make it easy for them.”
Residents of some smaller settlements, such as Elei Sinai in the north of the Gaza Strip, gave up the idea of resistance and held tearful farewell gatherings before moving out at the weekend.
In Morag, residents ripped up olive trees rather than leave them to the Palestinians. Outside the settlement of Peat Sadeh, Yaakov Mazal Tarin set fire to his agricultural packing house and a mini van while smashing it with a forklift. ”I don’t want to leave anything for the Palestinians,” he said.
Others took a more practical view by carting off house fittings to a nearby Arab neighbourhood in search of buyers.
In Neve Dekalim, many families could be seen packing their belongings in cardboard boxes and loading their cars, despite an increasingly noisy rhetoric from their leadership and cars prowling the streets with megaphones calling for solidarity and a firm stand against the removals.
The remaining settlers have been joined by several thousand anti-disengagement supporters, many of them young people from Israel’s West Bank colonies. The army chief of staff, Dan Halutz, on Sunday estimated that about 5 000 activists had infiltrated Gush Katif in the past weeks, despite numerous roadblocks.
”In the end, three or four or even 5 000 people will not prevent the [army] and the police from carrying out the law of the Knesset and the decision of the cabinet,” he said.
The settlers have repeatedly said they will not use violence against the police or soldiers but some are laying fairly desperate plans for sabotage. The local pharmacy has done a brisk trade in syringes bought by young men and women who intend to plant them in the tyres of army vehicles and buses used in the evacuation.
At Neve Dekalim’s synagogue, notices offer advice on how to disable engines and suggest that people forced on to a bus should rock it from within until it turns on its side.
The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, told a rally in Gaza City to celebrate the withdrawal that the pullout showed that Palestinians were on the path to an independent state, and that ”the evacuation from Gaza was the first step towards the liberation of Jerusalem”. – Guardian Unlimited Â