Settlers resigned, resistant in Gaza

Settlers resigned, resistant in Gaza
Protesters delay eviction notices
By Joel Greenberg, Tribune foreign correspondent. Rafael D. Frankel contributed to this report
Published August 16, 2005

GADID, Gaza Strip -- Israeli settlers facing evacuation from the Gaza Strip massed at the gates of some of their communities Monday and prevented army officers from delivering eviction notices requiring them to leave their homes by midnight Tuesday.

The protest action, during which the settlers appealed to officers to disobey orders and challenged them in emotional exchanges, was a taste of scenes to come when troops are to begin ousting settlers from their homes, an operation set to begin on Wednesday.

"Difficult days await us," said Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, chief of the army's southern command. "The hardest day will be when we will knock on the door and ask a family to go out, but we know why we are doing it. . . . We are doing it in the name of the state, carrying out a legal decision passed at all possible levels."

Even as the settlers protested, moving vans continued to roll into their communities as some residents shipped out belongings in preparation for departure. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that 300 of the 1,600 families in the Gaza settlements already had left. Military officials said they expected a large exodus Tuesday as the midnight deadline approached.

The doomed settlements appeared torn between resignation and resistance, with many residents accepting that they must leave, and others, including thousands of recently arrived supporters from West Bank settlements, vowing to fight on. Israel is leaving the Gaza Strip after a 38-year occupation.

At a gate leading to the settlements of Gadid and Gan Or early Monday, scores of protesters held a sunrise prayer service, blocking the road. When an army colonel approached, backed by a busload of police officers, he received an icy reception.

`Go away'

"You have come to expel. Go away," said Shlomo Vanhotsker, a leader of Gan Or. "Where were you all the years we were being shot at?"

"We come in peace," said the colonel, explaining that he wanted to offer help to families in the settlements who wanted to move out.

"There's no one to talk to," Vanhotsker retorted. "We ask that you leave the settlement."
Down the road, three women confronted Eli Levy, a police officer.

"Look me in the eye," one woman said. "Are you ready to come to my house and expel me from my home?"

Levy responded: "I'm prepared to ask you to leave with me, in sorrow and pain."
The woman challenged another officer.

"Do you have any idea what you are coming to do?" she asked. "Do you know what being evacuated means? It means being expelled."

`A government decision'

Another woman said: "Our children are crying at night. They ask me, `How will we leave our toys, the picture on the wall?' How could you do such a thing? This is an un-Jewish order, immoral and inhuman. You won't forget this your whole life."

The officer answered: "I don't want to go into politics. This is a government decision. If a state cannot carry out its own decision, it is no longer a state."

A man shouted: "Use your conscience."

There were other people in history who said they were only following orders."

Although the protests blocked the delivery of the eviction notices in many of the settlements, they eventually were distributed in some communities.

At the settlement of Morag, a settler tore his shirt in a Jewish sign of mourning when he received the order, and his wife ripped the document up.

Protesters scuffled with soldiers and burned tires at Neve Dekalim, the main Jewish settlement, facing off with scores of police officers at the main gate, which the settlers had shut.

Sharon offers praise

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a televised address to the nation, paid tribute to the Gaza settlers as having completed "a glorious chapter in the story of Israel, a central chapter in the story of your lives as pioneers."

"Your pain and tears are an inseparable part of the history of this country," Sharon said.

©2005 The Chicago Tribune