By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
Aug 15, 2005
We go to press Monday morning as hundreds of Israeli men, women and children are confronting Jewish soldiers and police outside a number of towns in the Gaza Strip in an effort to stop the uniformed men from driving them out of their homes.
Standing in the fierce temperatures of a Middle East heat wave, Jewish mothers with little children in their arms and young men in orange with tears streaming down their faces are among those appealing to army and police officers not to force them to leave. ?We are one nation,? a crying man told an officer of the Golani Brigade. ?You must not do this to us.?
Journalists from all Israel?s television channels, along with thousands of members of the international media ? some unable to keep a note of victory from their voices ? are on the ground in Gaza to give live coverage to this unprecedented event.
The plan went into effect at midnight Sunday, when Israeli security forces closed the main crossing into Gaza, tacking large red notices to the gate at the Kissufim Crossing declaring the Gaza Strip off-limits to all Israeli citizens, forever.
The closure, marked by a small ceremony, signaled the start of the implementation of the ?disengagement? plan.
With the move, the Israeli government effectively began the operation that will see the Gaza Strip permanently severed from the biblical land of Israel, in accordance with the wishes of the international community.
Estimations are that the action will be over within a few weeks.
The pullout is expected to leave many in Israel traumatized. Shortly after the first scenes were beamed out across the airwaves, a weeping Israeli man told Jerusalem Newswire he was thinking of leaving the country. He believed his army service and all he had given to this land had been in vain.
?I do not know how to bring up my children any more,? he said, his voice dull. Referring to the widely held belief that a vacated Gaza will quickly turn into a terrorist state, he added: ?If Israelis insists on going this way, they will deserve what they get.?
While a number of Jews have left Gaza voluntarily (just how many have gone is disputed) thousands more have declared their resolve to stay.
Under the expulsion plan, they have 48 hours to leave voluntarily. Any remaining on Wednesday morning will be forcefully removed.
After their departure, the houses they built and made into homes will be flattened by bulldozers. The rubble will be given to the Palestinian Arabs to use for the construction of a Gaza sea port.
If completed according to the plan of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the action will end with all Jews permanently banished from the area biblically given to the Tribe of Judah, leaving a judenrein Gaza Strip in the hands of the Arabs.
In the process, 10,000 Jewish men, women and children will have been forcefully removed from their homes.
Their expulsion is only the first step. American and Israeli government officials are already planning ?Disengagement II? ? the removal of Jews from all of Judea and Samaria ? cradle of the nation.