About bloody time...

[God himself]

 

quote:
  NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip, Aug 16 - Israel gave thousands of Jews still in the Gaza Strip a last chance on Tuesday to leave or face forcible removal in the first uprooting of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.
  "The only way is out," Eival Giladi, strategic coordinator in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, told reporters after Israeli army officers with 48-hour eviction notices confronted and consoled shouting and tearful settlers on Monday.
  "All of Gush Katif is in mourning," settler Gilad Meimon told Israel Radio on Tuesday as he waited in a vehicle packed with family belongings to leave Gaza's largest Jewish settlement bloc forever.
  In a televised address Sharon, once the settlers' champion, told Gaza's 8,500 Jewish settlers he shared their pain but also understood the plight of 1.4 million Palestinians in the coastal strip.
  "We cannot hold on to Gaza forever. More than a million Palestinians live there and double their number with each generation. They live in uniquely crowded conditions in refugee camps, in poverty and despair, in hotbeds of rising hatred with no hope on the horizon," Sharon said in the five-minute address.
  Eviction warnings to the 9,000 settlers in all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank went into effect at midnight on Sunday under Sharon's plan to "disengage" from conflict with the Palestinians.
 
  SHARON SAYS PULLOUT GOOD FOR ISRAEL
  "This plan will be good for Israel in any future scenario. We are reducing daily friction and its victims on both sides. The Israeli army will redeploy along defensive lines behind the security fence," Sharon said.
  Sharon, whose plan is shown to have majority support in Israeli opinion polls, said Israel was prepared to make peace but he threatened Palestinians with Israel's harshest response ever should they attack once the settlers had been evacuated.
  In the West Bank, two settlements -- Ganim and Kadim -- became the first to be vacated, an army spokeswoman said. Most of the residents had already left before the eviction order.
  The army has yet to say in what order it will evacuate the remaining settlements starting early on Wednesday.
  Israel's Haaretz newspaper quoted an unidentified senior army officer as saying the military hoped to complete the evacuations within 10 days, ahead of a Sept. 4 target date.
  The Israeli army intends to wrap up the Gaza pullout in October, when the last troops come out.
  Palestinian militants claim the withdrawal as a victory and Israeli opponents decry it as a surrender to violence, while Washington sees it as a catalyst for renewed peacemaking.
  In the largest Gaza settlement, Neve Dekalim, settlers used makeshift barricades and their bodies on Monday to stop soldiers from delivering the eviction orders launching what Israel says will be the end of 38 years of occupying the coastal strip.
  "We will not leave this place ever and we will not surrender it to terrorists," said Orit Kalfa, 32, of Neve Dekalim.
  Acts of defiance were the order of the day. More than 150 people were arrested in southern Israel during protests and attempts to march to Gaza, police said. In the Kfar Darom settlement in Gaza, people planted dozens of trees.
  At Shirat Hayam settlement, residents dug trenches in an apparent attempt to obstruct army vehicles.
  Many of the Gaza settlers, joined by up to 5,000 supporters from outside the strip, vowed not to budge, insisting the land was part of the Land of Israel God gave the Jews in the Bible. However, others did leave.
  Giladi said he expected about half the settlers to be out by the time their 48 hours were up, adding: "We are talking about 700 to 800 families that will leave tomorrow by midnight."
  In the Morag settlement, one resident could do little but weep and a soldier put his arm around him for comfort, a scene repeated elsewhere.
  Israeli officials say 66 percent of the Israeli families in Gaza have accepted state compensation deals. Those who refuse to go could lose a third of the money, which ranges from $150,000 to $400,000 per family.
  Palestinians welcome Israel's withdrawal from land captured in the 1967 Middle East war. However, they fear Sharon devised the plan as a ruse to cement Israel's hold on most of the West Bank, where 230,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians live.
  The World Court describes Israeli settlements as illegal. Israel disputes this.

[tweek]

I'm all for a Palestinian state & sincerely hope this does help move things in that direction & ultimately that there can (finally) be peace in that region.

However, I've been looking at the pictures of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad & Fatah Movement 'rallies' going on in Gaza where they are marching 'in uniform' with all their weapons displayed, etc. ---- what do you make of that? I can't say they look all that peaceful or interested in peace -- or is this just their way of showing a victory?

[This message has been edited by tweek (edited 17-08-2005).]