Last settlements evacuated as resistance folds without major incident

Last settlements evacuated as resistance folds without major incident

By Rafael D. Frankel

SA-NUR, West Bank—On the roof of the three-story art gallery here, where six Palestinian towns and a series of mountains make-up the 360-degree panorama, barrels of canned food, stacks of bottled water, and enough mattresses to accommodate dozens of people were piled amongst gas masks, megaphones, and ladders.

They were supplies for a long-awaited battle that never happened.

The last pocket of resistance to Israel’s disengagement plan fell with a whimper here Tuesday despite long hyped fears that this hill-top enclave of religious Zionists might put up a real fire fight against the Israeli Defense Forces which came to remove them.

The settlers of Sa-Nur proved good to their word of non-violent resistance. No shots were fired, no acid was thrown on police, and though nearly all of the residents and protesters who were removed today had to be carried out, most did not struggle against it when the time came.

Still, officers from Israel’s SWAT team, the Yassam, were forced for the second time in a week to storm a roof top in two modified cargo crates lifted by separate cranes. Though it took them more than 20 minutes to gain the roof in the Gazan town Kfar Darom, the Yassam did it here in less than one.

As the crates were heaved into position, Yassam officers inside them sprayed fire extinguishers at protesters on the roof wearing gas masks and brandishing long wooden beams in an effort to prevent the crates from landing. Simultaneously, three officers perched in a fire ladder used a high pressure hose to move the protesters back, and the combination of the two allowed the crates to land.

Once the Yassam were on the roof, the resistance ended and the protesters began praying the traditional afternoon Jewish service.

“It seems we couldn’t prevent [the evacuation] from being performed,” said right-wing Knesset Member Arieh Eldad who moved to San-Ur nine months ago. But “we will return and rebuild every settlement that was destroyed.”

After the service, the protesters fell to the ground, laying on top of each other and locking their limbs together. As the Yassam struggled to untangle one from the other and carried them to the crates, they sang “The Nation of Israel is one” and “The eternal people are not afraid of the long path.”

Despite the cage landings, the most difficult army operation came in the middle of the day when female soldiers were charged with removing around two dozen women from the court yard of the art gallery. Many of them had children and refused to hand them off to the female officers while they were being carried away.

One boy around a year old started crying when soldiers moved to carry him and his mother away together. The woman kept her eyes on her boy the whole time, refusing to speak to, or even acknowledge the soldiers. “Don’t look at them, look at mom,” she smiled at her son as the soldiers moved in and hoisted them away.

Earlier in the day, Israeli soldiers cleared out the main synagogue where around 30 men and teenagers had dug an eight-foot trench around the side of the building, strung razor wire around the side walls and welded metal bars across the doorway and windows.

With sparks flying, army engineers cut through the bars at the doorway using two large circular saws. Soldiers then allowed the protesters to finish their prayers before carrying them out. They were also sitting on the floor, limbs locked together and singing, when the soldiers came for them.

The day began in earnest at 5:30am when long columns of busses streamed down the road from the north carrying around 10,000 soldiers. Though youths lit tire fires and scattered the road to Sa-Nur with tables, chairs, mattresses, and metal spikes, it was easily cleared out by an army bulldozer which first uprooted the settlement’s locked entrance gate in a matter of seconds.

After police moved in to secure the town, soldiers quickly broke down dozens of unoccupied tents (the people had locked themselves in other buildings) which were home to hundreds of visitors who came to support the residents here who chose to stay. At the same time, protesters on the roof sang a traditional Jewish prayer which beings: “How beautiful are your tents, oh Jacob.”

Soldiers then moved methodically from house to house, forcibly removing families, some of whom were wearing six-pointed orange stars on their shirts.

One family had “barricaded” their house with a tricycle, a toy car, and kid-size chairs. Upon leaving the home, a girl around five years old jumped down their one stair with a bag of graham crackers in her hand and a wide smile.

At a quarter after seven, an announcement came over the town’s loud speakers for everyone who wanted to, to come into the art gallery together before the doors were welded shut. Along the roof, settlers had strung up a large sign which read: “Damned is he who expels his brother from his home.”

But after using circular saws to cut through the art gallery doors, soldiers and police met minimal resistance in clearing out the town’s largest building.

“I think [the prospect of] violence was very much a media created notion,” said IDF Spokesman Marcus Sheff. “Our working assumption was that people would resist but wouldn’t cross any red lines.”

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel