56 families of Tel Katifa leave willingly
 

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Jerusalem Post Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST  Aug. 17, 2005

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The evacuation of most Gaza settlements will be completed by the weekend, the IDF's operations chief told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday afternoon.

Maj.-Gen. Yisrael Ziv said that Neveh Dekalim and the 8 other settlements where the security forces were operating Wednesday, would be empty of residents "by Shabbat."

At a later briefing in Kerem Atzmonah, Ziv said the pullout was going faster than expected. He attributed the efficiency to the fact that troops were already deployed in several settlements to deal with disturbances over the past several days.

During a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called on settlers to "blame me" for the evacuation, and not the soldiers and police.

OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Dan Harel, at the very beginning of Wednesday morning's evacuations in Neveh Dekalim, said, "This will be an important day, and a complicated one. We'll take it slowly and hope we come out of it as whole as we entered it."

9 of Gaza's 21 settlements were slated for full or partial evacuation on Wednesday: Neveh Dekalim, Morag, Ganei Tal, Netzer Hazani, Atmona, Kerem Atzmona, Bedolah and Shirat Hayam.

Five are already empty: Nisanit, Dugit, Tel Katifa, Pe'at Sadeh and Rafiah Yam.

Neveh Dekalim:
In Neveh Dekalim, the largest settlement in Gush Katif, thousands of infiltrators gathered at the synagogue and at the ulpana, or girls' school, leaving the streets to the residents who were mostly waiting inside their homes. About three-quarters of the homes were not evacuated voluntarily.

As of Wednesday at noon, 300 of 520 families remained in the settlement.

Evacuating forces were going into houses. Each squad carried maps of the internal layout of the houses they were entering, including information about the residents of each house.

After each neighborhood was cleared, police were blocking it off by standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Activists were sitting in a circle in the middle of the settlement, singing prayers and engaging soldiers in conversation. Police were occasionally grabbing them one by one, putting them on a bus, and taking them out of the settlement.

Most residents were leaving quietly. In very few cases, people had to be forced on to the bus.

Inside some of the evacuated houses, workers were dismantling furniture.

On the whole, the evacuation was proceeding without drastic incidents, and rabbis were helping persuade some residents to allow themselves to be evacuated.

Arieh O'Sullivan and Tovah Lazaroff reporting from the scene.

Morag:
In the isolated settlement of Morag, the evacuating forces were going house to house – sometimes forcefully - to remove the residents.

A female soldier was stabbed in the arm with a syringe and lightly wounded early Wednesday afternoon by a woman she was escorting out of a house. The soldier was evacuated to a hospital to receive a tetanus shot.

Forces were getting ready to evacuate the synagogue where 150 residents were singing and praying, including Morag's chief rabbi Yitzhak Wasserman.

Earlier Wednesday morning, troops surrounded the local kindergarten where the children and the kindergarten teachers were sitting outside in the garden.

Parents, with babies in their arms, sang psalms while the men tore their clothes in a sign of mourning.

The parents and children were led onto one of the buses sent to take them away.

Other residents barricaded themselves in the second floors of their homes and have hammered metal sheets onto doors and windows to prevent entry.

Warnings of a sniper threat from the nearby Palestinian areas have led police to ask those settlers who had climbed to the rooftops of houses to come down. Soldiers are also reportedly preparing to deal with mortar attacks after rumors spread that there is a mortar attack warning.

Trash cans and tires were set on fire by settlers opposing the evacuation.

One activist was caught with chemical substances and "ninjas," nails meant to blow the tires of cars carrying evacuating forces. He was arrested and detained for questioning.

One of the evacuating female soldiers started crying and collapsed. Settlers gathered around her, saying, "well done, you have a healthy mind."

Yaakov Katz and Margot Dudkevitch reporting from the scene.

Ganei Tal:
Only a few lone resistors tried to stop security forces as they entered Ganei Tal.

The IDF has agreed with settlement leaders that soldiers will knock on doors and give the families a few hours to pack their things. The settlers have agreed to voluntarily leave by early afternoon.

Ganei Tal's most famous resident MK Zvi Hendel (National Union) told Army Radio early Wednesday, "I haven't started to pack. Emotionally I can't, not my home and not my possessions. So I've hired a company to do it."

Fifty seven families out of 85 remained.

Matthew Gutman reporting from the scene.

Atzmona:
Construction and Housing Minister Isaac Herzog told Israel Radio he was working on a deal for the residents.

Kerem Atzmona:
Evacuation forces entered the southern Gush Katif outpost early Wednesday afternoon. They went door to door removing women and children from their homes. According to border police, the settlement has proven the most resistant and emotional.

Four buses, containing approximately 300-400 troops, moved into Kerem Atzmona on Wednesday morning, where only 39 of those remaining were residents, while some 200 others were infiltrators.

Sheera Claire Frenkel and Margot Dudkevitch reporting from the scene.

Netzer Hazani:
Residents of Netzer Hazani came to an agreement with the army that they would voluntarily leave the settlement on Thursday.

Army Radio reported that 46 of 70 families remained in the settlement.

Bedolah:
Security forces entered the synagogue of Bedolah Wednesday afternoon and began evacuating the residents of the community.

Some 100 people were in the southern Gaza settlement - most of whom are not residents.

Bedolah representatives had reached an agreement with commanders of the battalion that came to evacuate them that the evacuation would be non-violent, but would also be unwilling.

Tel Katifa:
Tel Katifa's 56 families left the settlement peacefully Wednesday afternoon. The IDF has taken control of the abandoned area.

Shirat Hayam:
Residents asked the soldiers guarding the settlement to leave early Wednesday. They also poured oil and nails on the roads leading to the settlement, Army Radio reported.

JerusalemPost.com