“Jews don’t expel Jews from their homes,” were the heart-wrenching cries of settlers as they were being forcibly removed from their homes in the Gaza Strip 20 years ago.
For weeks some 14,000 policemen and soldiers had been trained for the unarmed withdrawal. Entering the homes of residents, soldiers were met with tears and cries of anguish, sobbing mothers held on to their children, fathers cried. Other soldiers climbed onto rooftops to coax the settlers down, taking them to nearby waiting buses.
My stint as military correspondent for The Jerusalem Post began before the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000 and continued several months after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. They were turbulent years during which I traveled the length and breadth of Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
I frequently visited the settlements in Gaza – Morag, Netzarim, Alei Sinai, and Kfar Darom, to name a few. I interviewed Jewish residents and soldiers. I witnessed the outcome of horrific terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of civilians and soldiers.
Bearing witness to the forced removal of Jews from their homes was painful.
In less than a week, nearly 9,000 Israeli citizens were expelled from their homes, 21 evacuated settlements were razed, and hundreds of homes, productive farms, hothouses, religious institutions, daycare centers, and schools were destroyed. Bodies interred in the Gush Katif cemetery were removed and reburied. The Jews’ connection to the Gaza Strip came to an end. It was an exhausting, gut-wrenching emotional process.
For some of the evacuees, even today the trauma remains, like a festering wound.
Addressing the nation prior to the start of what many described as “the expulsion” of Jews from their homes, then prime minister Ariel Sharon declared, “It is no secret that I, like many others, believed and hoped we could forever hold on to Netzarim and Kfar Darom.
“However, the changing reality in this country, in this region, in the world, required another reassessment and changing of positions.
“Gaza cannot be held on to forever. Over one million Palestinians live there, and they double their numbers with every generation.... They live in terribly cramped refugee camps, in poverty and squalor, in hotbeds of ever-increasing hatred, with no hope on the horizon.... It is out of strength, not weakness, we are taking this step.”
Sharon at the time believed the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza would enhance Israel’s security.
Divided opinions
Twenty years on, opinions concerning the unilateral Disengagement from the Gaza Strip remain divided.
There are those who believe it was the right move, and felt at the time Israel was allocating a disproportionate amount of resources in order to defend the settlements. Due to constant terrorist attacks, the settlements and the roads connecting them were turned into military zones. Military posts were erected at every settlement. Settlers traveling to and from communities drove in armored vehicles, in convoys accompanied by soldiers.
Some of the settlers at the time told me that if the withdrawal will bring peace, it will be worth it. Others declared, “How dare you expel me from my home!” “We are being forced out of here, but with God’s help we will return one day.”
As the last IDF troops shut the border crossing to Gaza in September 2005, Palestinian mobs ransacked the destroyed settlements’ hothouses, looting irrigation pipes and water pumps and anything they could lay their hands on.
In January 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections; and in June the following year, in a bloody overthrow, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip and ousted the Palestinian Authority Fatah. It chose to use the billions of dollars sent by the international community to aid the Palestinian people, to build a vast terrorist infrastructure and an enhanced military capability.
Terrorism continues to escalate
Many members of Israeli society feel even today that the forced removal of Jews from their homes in Gaza led to an escalation in terrorism. There are those who feel that if Israel had maintained a presence inside Gaza instead of uprooting Jews from their homes, perhaps the massacre of October 7, 2023, would not have occurred.
One thing is clear. The Palestinians had a chance to build a viable and flourishing presence in Gaza; instead, they opted for terrorism and hate.
In Sharon’s words at the time, “Now the Palestinians bear the burden of proof. They must fight terror organizations, dismantle its infrastructure, and show sincere intentions of peace in order to sit with us at the negotiating table.... To a hand offered in peace we will respond with an olive branch. But if they choose fire, we will respond with fire, more severe than ever.” ■