Showdown time in Gaza

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip – Hundreds of soldiers prepared early today to begin forcibly evacuating fellow Israelis from their homes in Gaza Strip settlements, the most contentious phase of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to turn over control of the territory to the Palestinian Authority after 38 years of Israeli rule.

The deadline for Jewish settlers to leave Gaza passed at midnight Tuesday, but thousands of settlers and outside protesters remained, setting the stage for an anxious and long anticipated showdown.

Only hours before the deadline, Israeli forces clashed Tuesday with pullout opponents, and many settlers made their exodus.

The violence occurred in Neve Dekalim, Gaza’s largest settlement, where pullout resisters scuffled with soldiers and police, threw paint and eggs and set garbage containers afire.

The protesters – mostly young people who were not Gaza settlers – confronted the authorities at midday when moving vans were brought into the settlement to help residents who asked for assistance. Some demonstrators were arrested.

The settlers had until midnight to leave on their own before the start of forcible eviction by troops today. Benny Silberman, a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, said protesters who came into Gaza in recent weeks would be removed first and then the residents. Israel is evacuating nearly 9,000 settlers as part of its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and officials estimated that about half of them left before the deadline.

On Tuesday evening, cars and pickup trucks piled high with furniture, plants and other household goods began streaming through the Kissufim Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, as the departure by many settlers gathered steam.

Those who were leaving flew Israeli flags from their cars along with banners and ribbons that were bright orange, the color of the anti-withdrawal protest campaign.

A car carrying the Dafna family from the settlement of Gan-Or carried a homemade sign: “Today we were evacuated from our home.”

Just past the crossing into Israel, a lone settler, wearing an orange ribbon, stood by the line of passing vehicles and wept, exclaiming, “Why, why?”

At the settlement of Gadid, Benny Yemini turned off the sprinklers for the last time on the main lawn at this farming settlement in the dunes of the Gaza Strip as members prepared to gather for a last, sorrowful farewell before leaving.

“I watered the lawn until this morning,” said Yemini, 55, who was in charge of development at Gadid. “These were my children – the flowers and the trees, and now that’s it.

“This morning I said goodbye to the trees, to the lawn,” Yemini said. “People are leaving and everything is green, so they can see with their eyes that it’s all blooming, smiling, not withered and dry.”

Reality hit home Tuesday morning in Gadid when groups of soldiers accompanied by civilian workers arrived to help residents pack up.

An army colonel made the rounds, meeting with families to discuss the move out to hotels and temporary housing.

Some residents cried as the soldiers worked around them, removing pictures, flags and personal mementos and loading boxes on trucks.

“It’s a difficult feeling for everyone,” said Lt. Col. Udi Zecharia, the commander of the unit working in Gadid. “They are here to love the families, to help them and hug them.”

At a home that was stripped of all its furniture and appliances, Gila and Moshe Maimon sat where a large window had been and reflected on more than 20 years of life in Gadid.

The Maimons were leaving Tuesday, but their 16-year-old daughter, along with other teenage friends, insisted on staying until the forcible eviction.

“There was crying and screaming, and she said that she would never forgive us if we didn’t let her stay,” Gila Maimon said.

Most of the people at Gadid, a community of 350, are planning to move together to Nitzan, a temporary housing development for evacuated Gaza settlers on the coast of southern Israel, about 15 miles north of the Gaza Strip. Others were scattering to other areas.

At the final gathering of the settlement – a tearful assembly resembling a funeral – speakers vowed to maintain the fabric of their community.

“We may not have taken the buildings and this sacred land with us, but we are taking the community, and that will be the formula for establishing our new home,” said Yigal Hedaya, the settlement rabbi.

The greeting for Israeli forces Tuesday at Neve Dekalim wasn’t nearly as genteel.

There was no resistance in the morning when police sawed off the gates, which had been sealed by pullout opponents. But when the moving vans arrived at midday, protesters blocked the road, chanting, “Soldiers! Policemen! Refuse your orders!”

They threw paint, stones and empty water bottles. A dumpster was dragged into the road, where protesters threw tables, chairs and desks into it and set it on fire. Police brought in an armored truck with a water cannon to extinguish the flames.

Many of the settlement’s 521 families had already left, and 31 families requested help from the army to move.

Shlomo Shunam Ha-Levi, 57, was among those waiting for the moving vans. “I just want to go now. This chaos is really not what I wanted,” said Ha-Levi, who lived there for 18 years.

More soldiers and police entered the settlement at night, fanning out in groups of 15. Going door-to-door, they told residents it was time to leave and offered to help them move.

The officer in charge of one unit, Udi Weizmann, approached one house and was met by Emanuel Weinberger, the uncle of the woman who lived there. “It’s really good to meet you,” the officer said.

“It’s not good to meet you – it’s really not,” said the uncle. “Think about this: What kind of state are you representing? This is something for the SS, for the Nazis, to do – to expel a Jew from his house in the middle of the night. Today you are fascists.”

“We are hurting, too,” the officer said.

“You aren’t hurting at all,” said the uncle.

“This is not a Holocaust,” the officer told him.

“Who are you to tell me?” asked the uncle. “You weren’t even born then. I was. You are Jewish Nazis.”

Later at another house, the officer told another angry woman, “Think what would happen if each soldier did what he wanted to do instead of what he was ordered to do. What kind of state would that be?”