Israel set its Gaza pullout into motion on Monday, blocking access to Jewish settlements in the occupied territory and giving settlers a 48-hour deadline to leave or be removed.
Eviction notices to the 9,000 settlers in all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank went into effect at midnight on Sunday, setting the stage for what could be one of the most traumatic events in the Jewish state’s history.
The pullout, claimed by Palestinian militants as a victory and decried by Israeli opponents as a surrender to violence, will mark the first evacuation of Jewish settlements from land Palestinians want for a state.
Under floodlights after midnight at the Kissufim Crossing on the Gaza border leading to the Gush Katif settlement bloc, the army lowered a gate with a red sign that declared: “Stop. Entry into the Gaza Strip and presence there is forbidden by law!”
Along a side road, a constant stream of settlers and trucks loaded with belongings left the Gaza settlements.
Heading in the opposite direction, some 50 military vehicles, including jeeps, ambulances and buses carrying police and soldiers, drove into the Gaza Strip.
By rare agreement with Israel, 7,500 Palestinian security men in Gaza moved into position on the outskirts of the fortified settlements on Sunday to ward off possible attacks by Palestinian militants.
Early on Monday a makeshift rocket slammed into a garden in Gaza’s biggest settlement Neve Dekalim but caused no casualties. Palestinian militants have largely observed a truce agreed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel in February.
TROOPS TO ENTER SETTLEMENTS
Troops planned to enter settlements later in the day to tell residents they must leave by Wednesday or be removed by force.
But in an apparent bid to avoid early confrontations, the army said it had decided not to go into five of the settlements, widely seen as bastions of resistance, until evacuation day after settlers said the soldiers would not be welcome.
“We estimate that no more than 50 percent of the residents of Gush Katif and (the other settlement areas) in the Gaza Strip will remain beyond the 16th,” Brigadier-General Guy Tzur, who oversaw the Kissufim closure, told reporters.
Hundreds of Gaza settlers have signed state compensation deals to leave, but the army said 5,000 pullout opponents have slipped into the enclaves, raising fears of violence.
“We definitely won’t make it easy for those coming to expel us,” Gaza settler council chairman Avner Shimoni said.
Under the slogan “Jews don’t expel Jews,” settler leaders have been waging an emotional campaign against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to “disengage” from occupied areas he said have little security value for Israel.
Palestinians welcome Israel’s withdrawal from land captured in the 1967 Middle East war. But they fear Sharon devised the Gaza plan as a ruse to cement Israel’s hold on most of the West Bank, where 230,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians live.
“We feel security with the near end of the occupation and the evacuation of settlers,” said Tawfiq al-Emawi, 31, a Palestinian from Gaza’s Deir al-Balah refugee camp.
BIBLICAL CLAIM
Many settlers stake a biblical claim to Gaza and the West Bank. The World Court describes Israeli settlements as illegal. Israel disputes this.
“Operation Brotherly Hand has begun,” Tzur said at Kissufim, adding soldiers would begin knocking on doors at settlements around 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) and offer to help pack up belongings during the 48-hour grace period.
Israel intends to leave the Gaza settlements and the four isolated enclaves in the West Bank by September 4.
Some settlers vowed to deny the soldiers entry by locking the gates of their communities of red-roofed homes, many of them built with state-subsidised mortgages approved by Israeli governments of various political hues since the 1970s.
U.S.-led mediators hope the pullout, which opinion polls show a majority of Israelis favor, will breathe new life into a “road map” peace plan.
Under a deal with the Palestinians, Israel will demolish the settlers’ homes. The Palestinian Authority wants to build high-rise housing on the plots to improve conditions in densely populated Gaza, where some 1.4 million Palestinians live.
Israel intends to complete the Gaza pullout in October, when the last Israeli troops are scheduled to leave. But, citing security concerns, it plans to retain control of Gaza’s airspace and possibly its border crossings.