GAZA CITY, 23 August 2005 — The last of the Jewish settlers left the Gaza Strip yesterday and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas acknowledged the role of the martyrs in their eviction. But a battle between Israeli security forces and hard-line Jews over the evacuation of four out of the 22 West Bank settlements looked set today. Worse, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to expand other large West Bank settlements.
“All the Jewish residents of the Gaza Strip have been evacuated,” national police spokesman Avi Zelba said at the end of an operation which began last Wednesday and had initially been expected to take some three weeks.
Residents of the last remaining settlement, Netzarim, were driven out after the local rabbi brought out the Torah scrolls at the end of a farewell ceremony in the synagogue.
The residents of Netzarim, arguably the most hard-line of all the Jewish communities in Gaza, remained defiant to the end. Even as troops arrived in the morning, workers and orange-clad settlers were seen hard at work on a half-built house, hauling concrete blocs and cement.
The Palestinian Authority condemned Israel’s decision to transfer the Netzarim settlers to the settlement of Arial in the West Bank. Saeb Erekat, Palestinian minister for negotiations, told reporters: “We consider the Israeli decision very dangerous and the same factors that led to the removal of settlements from the Gaza Strip will lead to the removal of settlements from the West Bank.”
Minister of Civil Affairs Mohammed Dahlan warned that transferring settlers from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank would bring more misery to both the Israelis and Palestinians.
Palestinian President Abbas said the evacuation was a reward for the “martyrs of the five-year intifada that has left nearly 4,000 Palestinians dead.
Abbas has been a frequent critic of the armed uprising but he said that the pullout was a vindication for Palestinian victims. “The wounds that you have suffered are your medals and the departure of the last settler today is your reward,” he told Palestinians disabled during the intifada. “It is thanks to the martyrs, prisoners and you,” he added.
He said the evacuation of Gaza and four West Bank settlements was only the beginning of the end of Israel’s occupation. “We will not close our eyes, we will not rest until they leave all our land,” he said.
More than 5,000 troops headed to two militant West Bank settlements to be evacuated today. Security forces braced for confrontations, saying some 2,000 ultranationalist youths holed up there planned to resist violently. Security officials said militants had hoarded stun grenades and tear gas canisters, and planned to hurl burning tires onto rivers of cooking oil.
A senior government official confirmed a Jerusalem Post report quoting Sharon as saying Israel would continue to build in the West Bank — a policy that has put him into conflict with the United States. The newspaper quoted Sharon as saying the Ariel bloc, near Tel Aviv, “will remain a part of Israel forever, connected territorially to Israel.” The Maaleh Adumim bloc outside Jerusalem, he said, “will continue to grow and be connected to Jerusalem.”
— Additional input from agencies
