Enlarge imageBy Jonathan Saul
GUSH KATIF, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli and Palestinian forces deployed on Sunday to ensure calm in the final countdown to Israel’s evacuation of Jewish settlements in the occupied Gaza Strip.
Thousands of Israeli police blocked approaches to Gaza to keep back Jewish protesters sworn to stopping the first removal of settlements this week from land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestinians want for a state.
The "Disengagement Plan" starts at midnight (10 p.m. British time) when border crossings to Gaza’s 21 settlements will be sealed and eviction notices go into effect, setting the clock ticking on a 48-hour deadline for settlers to leave or be removed.
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"At this point people can leave but no one can enter," said army spokeswoman Miri Regev.
The threat of disruptions to the pullout has grown with a recent influx of some 4,000 ultranationalist Jews into Gaza settlements to reinforce hardliners among the 8,500 inhabitants vowing to resist evacuation.
"We are on our highest alert," Israeli police commissioner Moshe Karadi said, as roadblocks sprouted across southwest Israel to prevent more pullout foes slipping into the Gush Katif settlements or swamping exit routes inside Israel.
Settlers refusing to leave have decided to lock entry gates of their enclaves to army officers due to come on Monday to urge inhabitants to go voluntarily or be ejected by squads of unarmed troops starting on Wednesday, Israeli media said.
By rare agreement with Israel, 7,500 Palestinian security men in Gaza began moving into position on the outskirts of the fortified settlements to ward off possible efforts by Palestinian militants to shoot at departing settlers.
"We want for the settlers and the army to leave in peace and security, without any undue incidents," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Israel’s Channel 10 television.
"That is what we are trying to achieve now. If you go out into the streets now, you will discover there is complete agreement among all Palestinian citizens and factions. Everyone is calling for a smooth and quiet withdrawal."
The security men, expected to station themselves as close as 150 metres (500 feet) from Israeli troops, would also prevent Palestinians charging into empty settlements to seize property.
DEFIANCE AT THE GATES?
"We definitely won’t make it easy for those coming to expel us, Gaza settler council chairman Avner Shimoni said. "If you ask me, 50 to 60 percent of us will remain and the rest will leave (before Wednesday)."
A settler torched his home, farm warehouse and minibus before leaving the enclave of Rafiah Yam on Sunday, underscoring the bitterness of Jews due to be uprooted from Gaza, territory to which many settlers stake a biblical claim.
There was a moderate flow of settlers leaving Gush Katif on Sunday as vehicles pulling trailers piled with suitcases, mattresses and chairs passed the Kissufim crossing into Israel.
Polls show most Israelis favour Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s pullout plan to help defuse conflict with Palestinians in revolt.
Major General Dan Harel, Israeli commander for the Gaza theatre, said up to 4,000 opponents of the withdrawal had got into the enclaves by overstaying visitor permits, hiding in car trunks or using other false pretences to outwit border guards.
"They won’t prevent the army and police from carrying out the decisions of the cabinet and parliament. They will make it more colourful, I hope not more violent," Harel said.
Israel, which has devoted some 50,000 troops and police to the pullout, aims to have the settlers out by September 4 and for its forces to quit the narrow coastal strip in October.
U.S.-led mediators hope the pullout will foster a "road map" process towards a Palestinian state at peace with Israel.
Palestinians welcome "disengagement". But they fear Sharon devised the move primarily as a smokescreen to cement Israel’s hold on most of the West Bank where 230,000 settlers live, denying Palestinians a state of viable size.
Some 2.4 million Palestinians live in the West Bank while 1.4 million are crammed into Gaza. The World Court describes the Israeli settlements as illegal. Israel disputes this.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Dean Yates at Kissufim)
