Posted on 08/17/2005 4:51:54 PM PDT by SJackson
NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip, Aug 17 (MASNET & News Agencies) - The last Jewish settlers have been dragged kicking and screaming out of the Gaza Strip as Israel moved to end 38 years of occupation of the Palestinian territory through a forced evacuation.
Backed by bulldozers, Israeli forces fanned out through the Mediterranean seafront territory on Wednesday, marching through makeshift barricades into seven settlements after hundreds of families defied a midnight deadline to leave voluntarily, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
With emotions at fever pitch over implementation of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan, a Jewish settler grabbed a gun from a security guard and killed three Palestinian laborers in a West Bank settlement, and an Israeli woman suffered severe burns after setting herself alight, reports news agencies.
Thousands of unarmed soldiers marched house-to-house in Gaza's Jewish enclaves, ordering people out and in some cases breaking down doors when they refused. Police grabbed protesters off the streets and pushed them into waiting buses, reports Reuters news agency.
As smoke rose from tires set ablaze by protestors, emotions ran high with sporadic scuffles breaking out during the historic operation pitting Jew against Jew.
Sharon, who risked his political career on the pullout and has been vilified by settlers who once considered him their champion, said he had been moved to tears seeing Jews being hauled from their homes.
In the main settlement of Neve Dekalim, a group of nine elderly women were dragged kicking and screaming on to a bus by around 50 police and soldiers.
"He [Sharon] has destroyed our lives and it's just one big party for you," screeched one of the women in her 60s.
In the tiny enclave of Kerem Atsmona, settlers walked out of their homes with their hands up, branding yellow Stars of David to imitate the ones worn by Jews during the Nazi persecution in Europe.
Protestors shredded their clothes in a traditional act of Jewish mourning in the southern settlement of Morag while members of a New York-based ultra-Orthodox movement threatened to commit mass suicide.
In Neve Dekalim, where hundreds of religious Jews were barricaded in a synagogue, there were scenes of chaos as security forces loaded youths on to a bus, with one boy smashing a window on the vehicle and clambering out of the back before being intercepted.
In one synagogue, radical youths who had slipped into the main settlement bloc sang a melody some Jews sang on their way to Nazi gas chambers, reports Reuters.
But elsewhere there were signs of settlers resigning themselves to evacuation as they hugged soldiers before filing quietly onto buses taking them to Israel, the news agency reports.
Bur Israeli troops had to contend with a hardcore of 5,000 ultra-nationalists who had reached Gaza enclaves in recent weeks, reports Reuters.
Ultra-nationalist Israelis see the West Bank and Gaza Strip as land bequeathed to the Jews by God, the news agency reports.
The operation marks the first time Israel has withdrawn from Palestinian territory captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and has raised hopes in the international community of a new breakthrough in Middle East peace.
By mid-afternoon, officials said more than half the settlers and their "human shield" protestors had been evicted from Gaza.
"By now we're over 60 percent out... The number of infiltrators has been halved," Sharon aide Ranaan Gissin told reporters.
Planners of Sharon's disengagement plan indicated the operation, which has deeply divided the nation, would be over in a matter of days despite diehard radicals in some areas barricading themselves behind trenches and barbed wire.
After giving the area's 8,000 settlers 48 hours to leave voluntarily following the formal start of the pullout on Monday, joint teams of thousands of soldiers and police rolled into a series of settlements at daybreak.
In Neve Dekalim, some 10,000 members of the security forces were on hand as troops also moved in to at least six other southern settlements - Bedolah, Ganei Tal, Kerem Atsmona, Morag, Slav and Tal Katifa.
Police quickly declared Bedolah, Tal Katifa and Kerem Atsmona empty and said that only a "handful" of settlements were causing problems.
In several of the settlements, including Neve Dekalim, army commanders tried to persuade residents to leave voluntarily, reports the AP.
Settlers who resist could lose a third of their state compensation, ranging from $150,000 to $400,000 per family.
Seventeen-member evacuation squads had been training for weeks, practicing scenarios that included violent resistance. More than 50,000 police and soldiers were deployed in Israel's largest military operation other than in wartime, reports Reuters.
The first group of Israelis to be dumped out of Gaza hurled abuse at soldiers manning the Kissufim border crossing.
"Why are you enjoying this? People are being kicked out of their homes," screamed one of the 30 passengers out of a window.
In Neve Dekalim, Palestinians, who see settlements as the most hated symbol of occupation, watched and cheered from nearby rooftops, reports Reuters.
Sharon, once the pioneer of Israel's settlement program in occupied Arab land, said he had been moved to tears witnessing the Gaza events unfold and pledged settlement activity would go on.
"When I see these families with tears in their eyes and police officers with tears in their eyes, it's impossible to look at this without weeping yourself," he told reporters.
Sharon voiced sympathy for the evacuees in a televised address. He urged them to blame him alone and not attack troops, reports Reuters.
"I am responsible for this. Attack me," said Sharon.
Polls show most Israelis back the withdrawal but rightist opponents call it a reward for Palestinian violence, the news agency reports.
Police chief Moshe Karadi said that the operation would be completed much earlier than the initial three weeks scheduled while an army spokesman said it would be over "within a few days".
The Gaza pullout is to be accompanied by a withdrawal from four small West Bank settlements. Security officials have expressed fears that the West Bank pullout could be more violent, given the land's biblical significance to observant Jews, reports the AP.
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas appealed for calm and urged Muslim clerics to preach against internal fighting and advocate unity during the pullout.
"The Israeli occupation is leaving today. Let us allow them to leave and let us not give them any reason to delay," he said.
Thousands of Palestinian security forces have been deployed around the Gaza Strip, stronghold of the Hamas movement and home to 1.3 million mainly impoverished Palestinians.
But the Gaza pullout could be complicated by the West Bank shooting spree, which drew condemnation from the Palestinian Authority and threats of revenge from Palestinian militants mostly inactive during the withdrawal, reports Reuters.
Police said the assailant, a driver, was taking Palestinian workers to jobs in the Shiloh settlement when he forced a security guard at knifepoint to hand over his gun and turned it on the occupants of his car. The gunman was later arrested, the news agency reports.
There was no immediate word on the motive for the shooting, which came almost two weeks after a religious army deserter trying to disrupt the pullout shot dead four Israeli Arabs aboard a bus in northern Israel.
Sharon has argued that the Gaza pullout will enable Israel to keep hold of its large West Bank settlements, where the vast majority of Israel's 240,000 settlers live alongside 2.4 million Palestinians, by easing international pressure for a more comprehensive pullout.
"True they [settlers] had a dream, and I did, too, that can we hold on to all the territory, or most of the territory, but things have changed," Sharon said.
He made clear that the settlement program would continue unabated on land the Palestinians see as an integral part of their promised future state.
"Settlement is a serious program that will continue and develop," he said.
The army intends to pull out the last troops from Gaza in early October, turning the land over to the Palestinians. The World Court calls the settlements illegal. Israel disputes this, reports Reuters.
Y'all please pardon my pessimism, OK? I just have a hard time getting all excited about this. The Pali's have done NOTHING to prove they've turned over a new leaf.
They have proved that terrorism works.
Safer for the entire country to have everyone in a more safe location.
Rabin encouraged the people to settle there, as a buffer but it is no longer feasible.
Tragic consequences that could not be avoided.
Just my opinion.
and there they are...
Which will mean exactly squat if Hillary, or any other dem besides Lieberman, is the next president.
Bush and Sharon are the same. Selling out their countries for the stinking New World Order that will destroy both nations.
I wish them both Hell.
"He [Sharon] has destroyed our lives and it's just one big party for you," SCREECHED one of the women in her 60s.
GRRRRRRRRR, STUPID IGNORANT NO-SOUL DEMONS IN THE MSM!!!!! Do you Main Stream MORONS think that we are too STUPID LIKE YOU to realize the choice of words that you use? You are NOT careful to choose words that paint the TRUTH of the situation, but instead use words to INFLAME or OUTRIGHT LIE so that your beloved AGENDAS continue to be happily swallowed by most of the smiling cadavers going under the name of humanity these days.
A poor old woman in her SIXTIES is being FORCED out of her home......DRAGGED OUT LIKE AS IF SHE IS A DRUG RUNNER OR YESTERDAY'S TRASH. Out of HER OWN HOME, with all her memories, joys, tears, and loves that have been born and crowned there, and she was ENCOURAGED BY HER OWN GOVERNMENT to MOVE THERE. Then, for no fault of her own, and with no real planning or compassion for where she will END HER "GOLDEN YEARS", THAT SAME GOVERNMENT DRAGS HER OUT OF HER HOME!!! And this FRIGGEN BRAINLESS WONDER OF A TAPE WORM'S EXCREMENT REPORTER HAS THE STUPIDITY TO SAY SHE SCREECHED?????????? SHE SCREECHED??????????
WELL, WHAT IN THE HELL WAS SHE SUPPOSED TO DO? SING?
NO WONDER I DESPISE THE MEDIA. Oh, and over at the Jerusalem ComPost I read where Ruth Matar, a dear lady who heads the Women in Green over there in Israel, I read where she was HISSING! Yes, you read that right! She didn't just answer, or say, or whisper, or yell, or even screech, but SHE HISSED her answer in the words of the Brain-dead alien life form "reporter" who was writing the article.
GRRRRRR to the MSM! Now how on earth am I supposed to even TRY to be DECEIVED into slumberland when reading the VERBAL VOMIT that passes for newsprint, when the slander and HATE are soooooo obvious that even one of their fellow feces in training has to confess that it is propaganda, and not news?!!! GAG and BARF! A POX ON ALL MSM! Why I'd rather see my kids grow up to be operating their own meth labs than be in the MSM. The devil's best tool going today is the MSM.
@U!!$#!T F@[% #&^% #&^% and #&^%!!!!!!
I love a good rant.
Ethnic cleansing?
"The IDF could not protect the settlers against the ever more violent million arabs.
Safer for the entire country to have everyone in a more safe location.
Rabin encouraged the people to settle there, as a buffer but it is no longer feasible.
Tragic consequences that could not be avoided.
Just my opinion."
On the contrary - the tragedy is that the evictions could and should have been avoided. It can only be concluded from the talking points of your post that you've been reading the MSM and not much else. You and others need to get the facts. The Palestinian Arabs were given 98.5% of the territory they asked for under Oslo, because Israel keeps its word. Israel does not control them; they already control themselves. They are systematically finding ways to take one chunk after another of Israel. The entire Arab media makes it crystal clear that there is no stopping point for them. All the Arabs were being asked to do under the Oslo Accords was stop the incitement to hate. That they did not do, so Israel acted like a fool in giving them land and got nothing in return. All of this disengagement was totally avoidable. A blunder of major proportions. Sharon's decision (quite likely really that of the U.S. State Dept and the EU who want it to look like it was Sharon's idea) puts the West at far greater danger for increased terrorism, not to mention the increased terrorism against the people of all Israel.
Gaza's terrorist training camps are being beefed up and all the top terrorist leaders are in the process of moving there even as the Jews are being evicted.
Safer for the entire country to have everyone in a more safe location.
Rabin encouraged the people to settle there, as a buffer but it is no longer feasible.
Tragic consequences that could not be avoided.
Just my opinion.
I'm between that opinion and the opinion that this move and the pattycake being played with Iran will ENSURE a nuclear confrontation in the Middle East in 5 to 10 years.
If I had a legitimate means of threatening the existence of Mecca and Medina and several others of Islams "holiest site" I might just throw out that ultimatum.
Screeching halt. This land was originally Egypt's. Son and I were discussing this tonight. I was floored when he said the Israelis should destroy their houses (I agree). I told him that maybe now the Palestinians could get an economy going...construction could be booming. Fifty cents says that inside of a year, it's just another slum. And the Palestinians will be whining about how Israel didn't leave them anything.
When does the carping about Jerusalem begin?
The jewish people left are the ultra hardliners waiting for a miracle.
As a jewish woman with family living in Israel for decades I can tell you that I personally do not support the holdouts.
Am beginning to think they don't care what this looks like before the world since they must know they can't win.
Sadly, they put their own demands before the entire country's needs.
Yes, the people who came there were brave. They also were shot at, murdered, (slaughtered is a better word) and it came to a point where the situation had to change.
To ask the IDF to protect 8,000 settlers against a million arabs is just too much.
I have no illusions that the arabs are going to create a peaceful state. NONE. They'd rather live in what Sharansky called a FEAR society than a FREE society. Ultimately, Sharon will be at war again. And the cycle will continue.
>>>These folks have been at this for hundreds of years
Thousands even.
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