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Hundreds barricaded in Kfar Darom synagogue

Security forces have created a perimeter within Kfar Darom early Thursday morning lining up around all the homes and the center of the settlement.

Security forces, including cavalry trucks, spread throughout Kfar Darom by the thousands just after 7 a.m. Thursday, according to eyewitnesses.

Special forces carrying detailed maps of the community have filled the settlement and there is a soldier or police officer every five yards.

At the same time, protesters knocked down a huge telephone antenna and it was lying in the middle of the street.

Settlers were calling on the forces to refuse order, calling it an expulsion of Jews from their homes.

"What they are doing to us is an atrocity," said David Goldberger, originally from Australia, one of the settlement's many infiltrators.

"Security forces should refuse orders and not participate in a mission against Torah and God's will," he added.

Groups of men were still praying morning prayers and reciting psalms on the porches of their homes.

In an attempt to stop the forces, locals and activists laid down nail studded lengths of rubber pipe overnight Thursday.

Several hundred youths have barricaded themselves in the synagogue and have affixed concertina wire along the roof with a sign reading "Kfar Darom shall not fall a second time."

Meanwhile, throughout the settlement, soldiers and settlement leaders were negotiating.

Early on Thursday morning, thousands of security forces arrived at the main gate of Kfar Darom and to the break in the fence on the southern side of the settlement that youths tore on Wednesday. As the forces arrived, loudspeakers blared throughout the settlement, telling the youthful infiltrators who arrived over the past few weeks to "go to their special points."

The youths could be seen running to pre-assigned posts on rooftops, and assuming predetermined responsibilities, organized by groups of eight youths, each led by a squad commander. Unlike settlements like Morag, which assembled makeshift barricades of branches and rubbish, the activists in Kfar Darom employed concrete blast barriers and pre-assembled chains of nails designed to puncture the tires of arriving vehicles.

The secretary of Kfar Darom expressed his hopes that the actions Thursday would "end in peace and that none will be injured."

He reiterated earlier claims that "our instructions are [to resist] without violence and not to strike, but in any case to battle with all means at their disposal and to hold on to this place."

He promised, however, that Thursday's attempt at evicting the Kfar Darom settlers and their reinforcements would not be a simple task. "There will be a stubborn struggle over the land of Israel, the people of Israel and of the Torah of Israel," he said.

Rumors spread Wednesday evening that Kfar Darom, considered one of the two most hardline settlements that have yet to come to an agreement with the evacuation forces, was to be evacuated on Thursday morning.

Kfar Darom has become swollen with illegal activists in recent weeks since the declaration of the whole of the Gaza Strip as a closed military zone. According to the settlement's spokesman, Asher Mivtzari, at least 1,200 infiltrators were camped out in the settlement, reinforcing the 65 families already living there.

On Wednesday, several hundred settlers broke out of the settlement and pushed large cinderblocks off a bridge and tried to torch a nearby Arab house, witnesses said. Security forces arrived, brought the fire in the house under control and tried to push the settlers back into Kfar Darom. Palestinians threw stones at the settlers.

Residents proudly cite Kfar Darom's history as a groundbreaking settlement dating back to the days before Israel won her independence. Kfar Darom came into existence for the first time in 1946. Two years later, during the War of Independence, the nascent kibbutz was besieged by the Egyptians and after holding out for three months, the settlers of Kfar Darom were evacuated in the summer of 1948 and the kibbutz fell into Egyptian hands.

After the 1967 Six Day War, Kfar Darom was reestablished by the Nahal Corps and reverted to civilian status in 1989. Throughout the recent intifada, Kfar Darom and its approaches were focal points of terror attacks and rocket fire.