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An anti-pullout protestor exits Kfar Maimon. (AP)
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07/21
Haaretz |
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners July 21, 2005 |
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Police on Wednesday night arrested 300 opponents to the disengagement for entering the "closed military zone" of the Gaza Strip to reach the Gush Katif settlements.
A number of the protestors at Kfar Maimon attempted to cut the Gaza Strip boundary fence and reach Gush Katif by foot. They were arrested and transferred to the Be'er Sheva police station for questioning.
Settler leaders claim that despite the arrests, some 1,000 pullout foes succeeded to infiltrate into Gush Katif overnight.
Meanwhile, a Givati Brigade infantry soldier was run over Wednesday night after settlers refused to provide ID at a checkpoint between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
A jeep traveling in a civilian convoy pulled out of its lane near the Kissufim crossing, hit the soldier and subsequently fled the scene. The driver was later arrested.
The soldier was lightly wounded and was evacuated to Soroko Medical Center in Be'er Sheva. The IDF said its viewed the incident very seriously.
The standoff between security forces and pullout opponents began Monday after as many as 30,000 protesters converged on the southern Israeli farming village of Kfar Maimon with the goal of marching into nearby Gaza, in defiance of a government order banning non-residents from entering.
But with rings of soldiers and police preventing them from leaving for the Gaza settlements, where they had hoped to reinforce the thousands of settlers living there, pullout opponents essentially gave up their protest.
By late Thursday morning, an estimated 1,500 remained, police spokesman Avi Zelba said.
Settler leader Bentsi Lieberman said early Thursday that withdrawal opponents would infiltrate Gaza "little by little" instead of in a mass march.
Lieberman said hundreds have made it into Gaza since the area was declared a closed military zone last week, but Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi estimated that dozens, not hundreds, have entered unauthorized.
"(The) battle will continue in one format or another," settler leader Pinchas Wallerstein told Israel Radio. "We won't stop for a minute trying to get into Gush Katif."
In the meantime, the government is considering moving up its mid-August withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, senior government officials said Thursday, after the three-day mass protest against the pullout tied up tens of thousands of security forces.
Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's point man on the Gaza evacuation, said he would favorably consider moving up the pullout in light of the protest. Israel sent 20,000 police and soldiers to block the protesters from marching to the Gaza settlements to reinforce the settlers there.
"This confrontation saps a great deal of energy, disrupts the lives of all of the country's residents, doesn't lead to any advantage. So I would definitely weigh (an earlier withdrawal) favorably," Olmert told Israel Radio.
Israeli officials might discuss moving up the pullout with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is due to arrive in the region later Thursday, according to another senior government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have been made.
The evacuation originally was to have begun in mid-July, but was pushed back to mid-August, ostensibly out of consideration for the religious Jews observing a three-week mourning period -- beginning Sunday -- for the destruction of the biblical Jewish Temples. Critics said the pullout was delayed because the government was far behind in its preparations.
If pullout opponents "think these are appropriate days for protest... I don't think the government has to act differently," Olmert said.
The senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were no legal obstacles to moving up the pullout, and that the matter would be discussed by Israeli officials, and possibly with Rice. But the lack of legal barriers doesn't mean the withdrawal will be moved up, he said.
"Legally, there is no problem. But there are other problems -- logistic problems, coordination (with the Palestinians), evaluation of the situation to minimize friction, and Palestinian terror," the official said.
The AP contributed to this report.
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