KFAR DAROM, the Gaza Strip — Israel's military, under Palestinian
missile and mortar fire, has mostly completed the eviction of an estimated
16,000 Israelis from the Gaza Strip.
By Friday, all but four of the 21 Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip
were empty, with bulldozers preparing for the demolition of homes, schools
and synagogues. The remaining communities were expected to be evacuated next
week.
Israeli military sources termed the evacuation successful, saying the
worst-case scenarios of armed clashes or heavy Palestinian missile strikes
did not materialize. They said that within two days, more than 15,000
Israelis — about half of them engaged in some resistance — were removed
from the Gaza Strip.
The withdrawal has taken place under Palestinian fire. On Thursday, an
Israeli soldier was injured when a Hamas-origin Kassam-class short-range
missile landed in the Jewish community of Netsarim, Middle East Newsline reported. The military did not
respond.
In several cases, the troops stormed synagogues where
resistors were huddled in a last stand.
"It could be that by Tuesday and Wednesday all of the residents would be
evacuated from the Gaza Strip," Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Dan Harel
said.
In the Jewish community of Gadid, about 2,000 Israeli police and
soldiers battled hundreds of unarmed resistors on Friday. About 200
resistors torched cars and threw eggs, oil and paint toward soldiers and
anti-riot police during an evacuation effort meant to be completed by Friday
afternoon.
On Thursday, thousands of police and soldiers arrived with armored
personnel carriers, water cannons, U.S.-origin D-9 armored bulldozers and
horses to evacuate what authorities deemed the most difficult bastions of
resistance. In Kfar Darom, army and police units evacuated 2,500 people from
Kfar Darom, many of whose residents were killed in Palestinian attacks and
regarded as the most ideological of the Jewish communities in the Gaza
Strip.
At the same time, army and police units raided the communities of Kfar
Yam and Shirat Hayam in the southern Gaza Strip. Within hours, these
communities were empty. About 1,000 people were arrested, most of them for
infiltrating the Gaza Strip.
There was no armed resistance in any of the Jewish communities. In Kfar
Yam, a reserve army officer brandished an unloaded M-16 assault rifle and
demanded that he and his friends be evacuated by the military rather than
anti-riot police. He later surrendered his weapon and army troops entered
the home and dragged out about 35 people, most of them women and children.
"Indeed, the most impressive aspect of the disengagement thus far has
been its complete adherence to plan," Haaretz military correspondent Amos
Harel wrote on Friday. "Particularly noteworthy was the effectiveness of the
mental preparation given the evacuating forces."
Military sources said the army was ordered to complete the evacuation of
the entire Gaza Strip by Friday. They said they expect Palestinians, led by
such groups as Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to rush the evacuated Jewish
communities.
The army, in an operation closely monitored by the United States, plans
to evacuate Katif and Netsarim on Aug. 22, the sources said. Residents of
these communities said they would not resist. A handful of residents were
still in communities in the northern Gaza Strip, but no resistance was
reported.
"I think that what we have seen is good cooperation between the Israelis
and Palestinians, and I think both sides can be proud of the way that it has
unfolded to date," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on
Thursday.