Thousands demonstrate against Gaza pull-out

Tens of thousands of protesters filled a square in Tel Aviv, vowing that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank would not happen.

Most settlers, however, were leaving a village in northern Gaza yesterday.

Demonstrators filled the square in front of Tel Aviv city hall, named after prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was gunned down there after a peace rally in 1995. Protesters carried signs criticising prime minister Ariel Sharon, the architect of the pull-out, which begins next week.

The theme of the demonstration was “Gush Katif and Samaria, I pledge (allegiance)”, a slogan painted in black on an orange background of many of the signs in the crowd. Orange is the colour adopted by the protesters to symbolise their struggle against the move.

Gush Katif is the main block of settlements in Gaza, and Samaria refers to the northern West Bank, where four settlements are to be removed in the government’s “disengagement” plan.

At the beginning of the rally, veteran settler activist Pinchas Wallerstein chanted the slogan, and the crowd replied in unison.

Settler leader Bentsi Leiberman vowed that opponents would block the soldiers with their bodies when the pullout came, but said the disobedience would be passive.

“Disengagement will not be carried out,” he said to the roar of the crowd. “We will not allow Jews to be expelled from our land.”

Settler leaders say they will send thousands towards Gaza next week in an attempt to reinforce the 8,500 settlers there. Many are expected to leave before the August 17 deadline, but others plan to stay and offer resistance.

Yesterday the military stopped giving permits to friends and relatives of settlers to enter Gaza.

US president George Bush endorsed the withdrawal in an interview broadcast on Israel TV yesterday. “The disengagement is, I think, a part of making Israel more secure and peaceful,” he said.

Sharon has said repeatedly he will not back down from his plan to remove about 9,000 Jewish settlers from 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the northern West Bank.

Many have already left.

Nissanit, a community of about 1,100 people at the northern edge of Gaza, was nearly deserted yesterday.

The furniture, windows and even the red roof tiles had been removed from many of the houses, leaving them empty shells, their gardens filled with boxes and broken hunks of plastic furniture. A small pink bike lay abandoned next to one house.

Israeli flags, small signs of protest, flew over many of the empty houses, each marked with small “x” by the army. “Sharon is garbage; you destroyed our lives,” read graffiti on one house.

“It looks awful. It hurts my heart to see the houses like this,” said Yossi Elus, a 30-year-old electrician from the settlement. He opposed the pullout but said he did not want to risk losing up to a third of his compensation package by staying after the deadline.

But a small group of people who recently moved there to protest at the pull-out said they planned to stay until troops forced them out.