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Anti-pullout activists pray after waking to the third day of their march, at Kfar Maimon. (AP)
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07/20
Haaretz |
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07/20
Ynetnews |
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| By israelinsider staff and partners July 20, 2005 |
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Despite the fact that they are currently barricaded by police at their encampment at Kfar Maimon, the Yesha Council announced on Wednesday that anti-disengagement march participants will begin heading toward Gush Katif starting at 7 p.m. They have vowed to proceed as peacefully as possible, headed by 10 senior IDF reserve officers. In the meantime, a Knesset plenum today defeated three bills proposing a postponement of the pullout.
"We are on our way to Gush Katif," settler leader Pinchas Wallerstein told The Associated Press. "It will take as long as it takes. We don't condone the use of violence aginst police and soldiers... but we have patience and we will wait and wait and wait."
Dozens of newcomers walked several kilometers and bypassed police roadblocks set up to prevent protesters from reaching the area of Kfar Maimon on Wednesday.
Eliada Yisrael, 49, reached Kfar Maimon on Tuesday from his settlement home in the Golan Heights, a plateau Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war.
"The atmosphere here is good. People have hope," Yisrael said. "We want this to be legitimate without violent confrontations with the security forces, that's our aim."
Wallerstein and Yisrael are among between 7,000 and 10,000 protesters, currently camped out in the Kfar Maimon farming village near Gaza.
Meanwhile, not all settler leaders were as optimistic. Yesha Council Chairman Bentzi Lieberman told Army Radio this morning that the bulk of the demonstrators would leave the area before the Sabbath begins on Friday evening, and that only a "nucleus" of a few hundred demonstrators would remain as a "forward base" of protest activities.
"We will certainly leave a core to continue operational moves," Lieberman said. "The rest will leave to re-energize and go to their Sabbath dinners, and await orders from us so we will be able to see what effective measures to take going forward."
Yitzhak Levy, a lawmaker and settler leader, said he had suggested to the protest leadership that they reach an agreement with police to march an additional 8 kilometers (5 miles) and go home, giving up on the goal of reaching Gaza.
The protest's aim, Levy said, is to show opposition to the withdrawal, and not to clash with security forces. "It will end either tonight or tomorrow morning. We are reaching the decisive moment," Levy told Israel's Army Radio.
Meanwhile, the Knesset plenum on Wednesday afternoon defeated three bills postponing the disengagement plan. The primary bill was defeated by a margin of 69-41 with two MKs abstained from voting.
Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Limor Livnat were not present during the voting.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom voted against the bills.
Knesset Chairman Reuven Rivlin and coalition chairman Gideon Sa'ar (Likud), both opponents of the disengagement, voted in support of the bills.
MKs Zevulun Orlev (National Religious Party), Yitzhak Levy (Renewed National Religious Zionism) and Uzi Landau (Likud), initiated the bills.
The AP contributed to this report.
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