Historic Move

Israel Seals Off Gaza To Israeli Civilians, Begins Pullout

(CBS/AP)  At daybreak Monday, Israeli troops were to fan out across Gaza's 21 settlements, knock on doors and inform settlers their presence in Gaza was now illegal. The settlers have until midnight Tuesday to leave voluntarily, without suffering a loss in government compensation.

“It is OK to cry with them,” the army chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, told commanders in urging troops to show understanding of the traumatic time for settlers. During the two-day grace period, “we are there to take it and not to dish it out,” he added.

However, once forcible removal begins Wednesday morning, soldiers will act with determination, Halutz said.

As part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's withdrawal plan, which was approved by parliament, Israel also will evacuate four small settlements in the northern West Bank housing some 500 people.

Many hope the pullout from the territory Israel captured in 1967 will be the start of a true partition of historic Palestine between Arab and Jew.

Others fear it is a ploy by Sharon to get rid of areas he doesn't consider crucial to Israel while consolidating control of parts of the West Bank, where the vast majority of the 240,000 Jewish settlers live.

The Palestinians want to create their own state out of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, with east Jerusalem as their capital.

Hundreds of Gaza settlers vowed to ignore the deadline and stay in their homes. They were reinforced by hard-line activists from outside Gaza. Halutz estimated Sunday that about 5,000 outsiders had managed to sneak into Gaza in recent weeks despite army restrictions.

They planned to try to close off their communities Monday by massing at entrances and blocking roads to prevent soldiers from delivering eviction notices.

But many families packed their belongings and left the Gaza Strip in recent days, and more were leaving Sunday.

In the Peat Sadeh settlement, Yaakov Mazaltareen set fire to his two warehouses that contained irrigation equipment and two vehicles. He used his forklift to knock down what was left of the structures. Settlers stopped to watch. One crying woman rushed her children away.

Most residents of Peat Sadeh already moved to Israel and were spending the weekend in a hotel.

Dozens of anti-pullout protesters put up tents in the beachfront settlement outpost of Shirat Hayam. They turned a dilapidated house into a storeroom, piling up diapers, bottled water and canned foods. Women cooked on open fires, children bathed in makeshift bathrooms and people chatted in open tents.

At a synagogue in Neve Dekalim, Gaza's largest settlement, seven people sat in the sanctuary and quietly prayed. Itai Ben Simchon, 17, came to the synagogue to collect his father's prayer shawl and said his family decided to leave on their own so as not to lose out on compensation money. “My mother and father are crying a lot,” he said.

Pinchas Ariel, a farmer from the Ganei Tal settlement, said he also was leaving on his own because he couldn't face clashing with Israeli soldiers. “I was in the army. I have two sons who were paratroopers, and I'm not going to fight my sons,” he said.

Earlier Sunday, hundreds of settlers sang traditional prayers of redemption as part of a ceremony at the Gush Katif cemetery to commemorate the Tisha B'Av holy day marking the destruction of the Jewish Temples. The cemetery's 49 graves are to be moved to Israel -- one of the most emotionally charged issues in the pullout.

Vice Premier Shimon Peres gave a pep talk to troops near the Gaza border.

“The settlements must be evacuated. They cannot stay here,” he told reporters. “I understand that there are feelings. I have sympathy (for the settlers), but they cannot replace a national choice.”