Israel, Palestinians on alert for Gaza pullout

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli and Palestinian forces were
ordered to move into position on Sunday to secure the impending
evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

“From Sunday morning, Israeli police are going to be on
their highest alert,” national police commissioner Moshe Karadi
said, announcing a series of roadblocks in southern Israel to
block pullout opponents from slipping into Gaza settlements.

A Palestinian task force was also due to deploy in areas
near the settlement enclaves to prevent any attempt by
Palestinian militants to disrupt an evacuation scheduled to
begin on Wednesday.

Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Youssef instructed the
security forces to raise their “level of readiness” to 100
percent, his ministry said on Saturday.

Israel intends on Monday to issue eviction notices in all
21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank under
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan, enshrined in law, to
“disengage” from occupied areas he regards of little security
value.

The 9,000 settlers ordered out will have a 48-hour grace
period to leave before unarmed Israeli evacuation squads arrive
early on Wednesday to remove any holdouts.

“Our prayers will save us,” said Benny Cohen, 55, of the
Gaza settlement of Neve Dekalim.

The settlement’s synagogues were filled with worshippers
late on Saturday reading from the Book of Lamentations on the
Jewish fast day of Tisha B’Av, when the devout mourn the
ancient destruction of Jerusalem’s two biblical Temples.

“Tonight is tinged with sadness and future generations will
look at this day with awe,” said Yohanan Abramovich, 19, a West
Bank settler who managed to reach Neve Dekalim despite a
month-old army entry ban on non-residents.

ISRAELI POLICE CHIEF BELIEVES PULLOUT WILL BE PEACEFUL

In an interview on Israel’s Channel Two TV on Saturday,
Karadi said some 3,000 settler supporters had made it to Gush
Katif, the largest Gaza settlement bloc, despite the closure.

“I believe that ultimately the evacuation and the protests
will end without casualties,” Karadi said.

Thousands of Israeli police and soldiers, divided into
16-member squads, have been training for weeks — including in
mock settlements — on the best way to face down defiance
peacefully and carry away recalcitrant settlers.

Karadi said the government would likely decide on Monday
which settlements would be evacuated first in an operation a
senior official estimated would be completed by September 4.

Government figures show more than half of the settlers due
to be removed have applied for state compensation, a sign they
intend to leave quietly.

Once the settlers are out, Israeli bulldozers will demolish
their homes under a deal with the Palestinian Authority, which
wants to build high-rise housing to ease crowded conditions in
densely populated Gaza, where 1.4 million Palestinians live.

Palestinians welcome the withdrawal but fear the plan is a
ruse to trade tiny Gaza for much of the occupied West Bank,
where 230,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians live, and
deny them the state they seek. The World Court describes the
Israeli settlements as illegal. Israel disputes this.

In Arab East Jerusalem, thousands of Israeli police
deployed to head off any clashes between Muslims and observant
Jews praying on Tisha B’Av at the Western Wall, adjacent to a
mosque compound known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and to Jews
as Temple Mount.

Violence at the holy site could inflame religious and
political passions at a time when both Israel and the
Palestinian Authority are hoping for a smooth Gaza withdrawal.