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Soldiers surround synagogues for gaza evaculation { August 18 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/international/middleeast/18cnd-gaza.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/international/middleeast/18cnd-gaza.html
August 18, 2005
Soldiers Surround Synagogues as Gaza Evacuation Continues
By STEVEN ERLANGER
and DINA KRAFT
NEVE DEKALIN, Gaza Strip, Aug. 18 - Hundreds of teenagers and other young people barricaded themselves into a synagogue complex in this Jewish settlement here today, as soldiers and the police vowed to move in and evacuate them.
Security forces three lines deep surrounded two synagogues, one occupied by boys and the other by girls. Many of the young people hunkered down inside said they would meet any show of force with passive resistance, but would not resort to violence.
The security forces were stationed among sand dunes and on a lawn in front of the complex, which sits atop a grassy knoll.
A similar standoff was staged at a synagogue in the Kfar Darom settlement, as security forces dragged residents our of nearby homes and a religious school.
Thousands of soldiers entered the hard-line settlement at dawn, on the second day of the forcible removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. They quickly surrounded the heavily fortified synagogue and two nearby buildings, and moved into two nearby homes after an attempt at negotiations with the residents failed.
Nearly 10,000 Israeli soldiers and police officers began the forcible evacuation on Wednesday, carrying some screaming from their homes in scenes that moved a number of the soldiers to tears.
After months of argument and political maneuvering, the Israeli forces moved in strength, but without weapons, to carry out the will of the government to give up part of the territory that Israel conquered in the 1967 war and that the Palestinians consider a part of their future state.
The mood was somber and serious, with experienced soldiers and police officers quietly trying to negotiate voluntary departures first with sometimes hysterical settlers, while ignoring their taunts. Only later in the afternoon did the forces resort to widespread forced evacuations in various settlements, in some cases dragging parents away in front of their frightened children.
Israeli officials spoke Wednesday evening of finishing the pullout here by the middle of next week, before moving to dismantle four smaller settlements in the West Bank.
While there was little serious violence in Gaza, an Israeli settler in the West Bank grabbed a gun from a guard near the settlement of Shiloh and opened fire on Palestinian workers. The settler, Asher Weissgan, 40, killed four Palestinians and wounded one other, and the killings are bound to increase tensions further, with the Palestinian militant group Hamas vowing revenge.
One of Israel's prime concerns has been the possibility of pulling settlers out under Palestinian fire from mortars or rockets. The Palestinian Authority has worked closely, and thus far successfully, with Israel to keep the quiet while Israeli troops are busy with their own citizens. But the killings and the Hamas threat have increased the chances of a serious confrontation that could delay the pullout, which is likely to be what the Shiloh settler had in mind.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon condemned the murders as an act of "Jewish terror." The State Department condemned the attack and called on the Palestinians and the Israelis to show restraint.
The Israelis also uncovered what they called an effort by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad to commit a suicide attack during the pullout, and made four arrests, the Israeli Army said. An explosives belt that was to have been used in the attack was discovered in a solar-power water panel in a house in the Palestinian enclave of Mawassi, which borders the main Gush Katif southern settlement bloc.
The army moved into most of the main Gaza settlements on Wednesday, leaving only two of the most militant, Kfar Darom and Netzarim, alone. By nightfall, the army said it had cleared the settlements of Morag, Bedolah, Kerem Atzmona, Ganei Tal, and Tel Katifa. Gadid, Peat Sadeh, Rafiah Yam, Shalev, Dugit and Nisanit were already empty or nearly so. Action was continuing in the largest Gaza settlement, Neve Dekalim, where several hundred young protesters, most of them there illegally from the West Bank, were taking refuge in the main synagogue.
The tactics were to move slowly, increasing the pressure on residents with a show of force. Special teams of police officers and soldiers tried negotiation first, and mostly successfully. Only later were the crowbars unpacked and doors forced open. Large groups of protesters, like those in Neve Dekalim's synagogue, were surrounded and then isolated.
But in Morag, negotiations with protesters in that militant settlement's synagogue resulted in many men in prayer shawls being carried out by officers. The women then agreed to be escorted away by female officers.
In Neve Dekalim on Wednesday, Dikla Cohen, 41, insisted on being carried out of her house, as were many of her nine children and their friends. "I feel that today was a pogrom," she said.
The family locked their large wooden front door and refused to open it to the soldiers, who eventually used a crowbar to pry it open. The operation took 90 minutes amid much drama and many insults.
In Morag, Adi Hendel left her house screaming at the officers. "You should be ashamed," she said. "You're doing a crime that the Arabs didn't do. You're puppets in the hands of this dictator Sharon!"
Her husband, Eran, in a prayer shawl, pried off the mezuza at the door of his house with a knife, then burst out crying and keening. He cut his shirt, to indicate mourning, then fell to the ground, sobbing. Four policemen picked him up and carried him away. A younger soldier, standing on the street as backup, put his hands over his face and wept.
In Kerem Atzmona, one of the most militant and religious of the settlements, more than 1,500 police officers and soldiers, some in riot gear, broke through gates and a barricade to surround fewer than 20 house trailers.
Few left voluntarily, and many houses had to be broken into, and their inhabitants carried away. Still, most of those carried screaming onto buses also had their bags packed.
In one house, a settler who had thrown eggs at soldiers and journalists was one of the last to go. His door had a poster from the Nazi era, implying that Israel was making Gaza a "Jewish-free" zone. He wore an orange Star of David on his shirt, marked "Jude," German for Jew. When his wife finally agreed to leave the house, all her children left with their arms up, screaming in unison, all wearing an orange star, a piece of theater for the television cameras. The police commissioner, Moshe Karadi, was there, and he said the day was hard on his officers and on the soldiers.
"If you asked the police, maybe half would support the settlers, but we don't ask them," he said. "Our government has decided, and we have to do this task with the utmost sensitivity, but also with a clear and obvious will."
A police spokesman said 13 members of the security forces were wounded in clashes with settlers and their supporters, including nine soldiers, but none seriously.
In Netivot, outside Gaza, a woman set herself on fire to protest the pullout and was in serious condition, and 2,000 other Israelis protested outside Mr. Sharon's farm near Sederot.
Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Mr. Sharon praised the settlers and the security forces. "When I see the families with tears in their eyes and soldiers and police with tears running down their cheeks, too, as they help them pack their possessions and the children's toys, you can't watch it without - I find myself crying, too. I'm proud that our army and police are capable of displaying such great sensitivity alongside the effort to fulfill all the instructions they have been given," he said.
The army's deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, also came here to Kerem Atzmona to oversee the difficult operation, hoping to learn lessons for those to come, like Kfar Darom and Netzarim. "It's very complicated operationally and emotionally," he said. Asked about the emotional effect on soldiers, he said simply, "You can understand why." But the first day had gone "pretty well," he said, raising hopes of finishing this evacuation quickly. But for the military to then destroy the houses of the settlers, and pull out its own equipment, will take several more weeks, he said.
Doron Kotler, the head of operations for the Israeli ambulance service, Magen David Adom, said he was impressed by the unusual patience shown by the police and soldiers, and the silence.
"There's a lot of sorrow," he said. "There's a kind of sadness, and all the faces are serious. The quiet and the silence here amazes me."
Steven Erlanger reported from Kerem Atzmona for this article, and Dina Kraft from Neve Dekalin.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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