neveh dekalim | “We are not violent people,” said Gidon Bashari, a high school principal who works in the Israeli city of Ashkelon. “Our struggle is in the spirit of the nation. What you are doing is anti-democratic and against our country, and history will judge you.”
Bashari, who has lived in the Gaza settlement Neveh Dekalim for 17 years, had not packed a single box as of Wednesday, Aug. 15. He told the soldiers who came to his door to evict him that he would leave peacefully — but not until they sat with his family and let them explain why they did not want to go.
His story was typical of the disengagement in action. After months of heated debate, threats and counterthreats, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip withdrawal finally got off the ground — with a series of incidents revealing the passionate emotions the move has ignited.
In Neveh Dekalim, the largest of the Gaza settlements, families pleaded with soldiers not to evict them from their homes of 20 years, yeshiva students ripped their shirts in mourning and anti-pullout activists called policemen “criminals.” Smoke from burning tires and rubbish curled into the hot air as a haunting silence fell over the community.
Despite resistance, Israeli officials said the withdrawal from 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank was going better than expected. By Wednesday evening, more than 60 percent of Gaza’s 9,000 settlers had left, leading Israel Radio to report that the evacuation could be completed well ahead of the Sept. 4 deadline.
But that’s not to say that all was going smoothly: In the West Bank, an Israeli settler shot dead four Palestinians.
Police said the man grabbed a gun from a security guard at the Shiloh settlement’s industrial zone and opened fire at Palestinian workers, killing four and wounding one. The assailant was arrested and disarmed.
In southern Israel, a woman set herself on fire at a police checkpoint to protest the withdrawal. The woman, a West Bank settler in her 50s, doused herself with gasoline and ignited herself.
A police spokesman who described the incident as a politically motivated suicide attempt, said the woman was admitted to a hospital with 60 percent of her body burned.
In the Gaza settlement of Morag, a woman stabbed an Israeli soldier with an IV needle near a synagogue, Ha’aretz reported.
In Neveh Dekalim, meanwhile, passions and tension ran high, though the scene remained relatively peaceful.
Some houses already were shuttered and abandoned Wednesday morning. At others, boxes were stacked on porches and patios for the moving vans.
Teams of soldiers went through the neighborhoods negotiating with families to leave their homes peacefully. In calm voices, they met the frenzied pleas of families telling them that their orders were immoral and should be ignored.
Up the street from Bashari’s house, Sagi Ifrach, 23, sat on the red-tiled roof of the house where he grew up, refusing to leave. Surrounded by friends singing “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, and waving the Israeli flag, they mocked the soldiers in the garden below.
Security forces eventually climbed a ladder and convinced Ifrach to come down. Wearing an Israeli flag like a cape, Ifrach sobbed as he descended the wooden ladder.
Nearby, a little girl with long brown hair cried uncontrollably as she leaned against her father’s leg. The family had just been evacuated.
While most families eventually agreed to leave their homes without a fight, there were scattered examples throughout the Gush Katif bloc, which includes the majority of Gaza settlements, of people who had to be physically dragged out their front doors, past gardens they had carefully planted and into dusty buses waiting to take them to hotels inside Israel.
About 50 soldiers entered the foyer of Neveh Dekalim’s Yamit Yeshiva, waiting to evacuate those inside. Worshipers held a final service, breaking into tears as they took scissors and knives to rend each other’s shirts in a sign of mourning.
Soon the wails turned to prayer and song as about 200 worshipers swayed arm in arm and sang of Jerusalem. As they prayed, some of the soldiers joined arms and swayed with them.
The intense emotions were evident throughout the day as soldiers escorted families from their homes. Many of the soldiers also wiped tears from their eyes and tried to comfort one another with hugs.
Eliana Braun, 16, from Ginot Shomron, a West Bank settlement, was among the girls who had spent the night at the Sephardi synagogue. She said she had not believed the evacuation would really take place — but that in any case, the struggle against it had been worth it.
“Now people are more connected and understand what is happening here,” she said. “I don’t think it will influence” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, “but this was not meant for him. Instead it was meant to wake up the country.”
Orit Cohen, 34, packed up her entire house in a single day. The family had decided to wait until the soldiers actually gave notice at their door before starting. Several volunteers then helped Cohen, her husband and their six children pack the family’s possessions.
“They can take the house and my belongings, but they can’t take away my spirit,’ Cohen said while her son Yair, 8, dozed on a roll of bubble wrap on the floor.
Yair had drawn a picture on the wall of a policeman with outstretched hands catching a pair of Gush Katif residents in his grasp.
Cohen said the children kept asking when the soldiers would arrive and where the family would go. After 10 days that they expect to spend in a hotel, the family has no plans.
Meanwhile, the students and rabbis walked out of Neveh Dekalim’s yeshiva carrying two Torah scrolls and a menorah. Singing and praying while weeping, they slowly made their way onto the waiting buses.
JTA correspondent Dan Baron contributed to this story from Jerusalem.