Deadline Hits For Gaza Pullout

The deadline passed Tuesday for Jewish settlers to evacuate the Gaza Strip, setting the stage for the Israeli military to evict thousands of the settlers and their supporters.

Moments before the midnight deadline, settlers were in synagogues in several of the 21 Gaza communities, dancing around sacred Torah scrolls, waving flags and singing nationalist songs in a show of defiance against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to unilaterally hand over the territory to Palestinian control.

The Jewish settlements, a focus of deadly Israeli-Palestinian contention for decades, were thinning out Tuesday, hours ahead of a midnight deadline before a military eviction. Hundreds of withdrawal opponents escalated their resistance in a possible harbinger of violence.

Army commanders prepared final plans to break into the first batch of Gaza's 21 settlements around daybreak Wednesday to drag out any settlers who defied orders to leave their homes. On Tuesday evening, dozens of troops were seen walking into the largest settlement, Neve Dekalim, apparently in preparation for the evacuation.

Demonstrators hurled stones, eggs and empty bottles Tuesday at soldiers and tried to block moving trucks sent by the army to help settlers who wanted to leave voluntarily.

As the atmosphere intensified and Israeli security sliced through one of the last barriers, CBS' Aleen Sirgany reports that force is now taking over where negotiations failed.

Smoke from burning tires blackened the air above Neve Dekalim, Gaza's largest settlement and the epicenter of defiance.

Israeli authorities said once Gaza is cleared of civilians — in at most three weeks — it will take several weeks more before Israel finishes dismantling its military installations and relinquishes the coastal strip to Palestinian control, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's historic plan to "disengage" from the Palestinians.

Settlers in several farming communities, in a final protest, burned their greenhouses and homes rather than leave them behind.

The fiercest resistance came from some 5,000 Jewish nationalists who slipped into the Gaza Strip over the past few weeks to reinforce the anti-withdrawal camp. Sharon has said giving up any territory and taking down settlements is very painful, and this week's confrontations could help his argument that Israel is making a huge concession that deserves international recognition.

By nightfall, three settlements — Dugit, Peat Sadeh and Rafiah Yam — were abandoned, and most residents had left three others. Several others were thinning out.

Israeli media, citing army estimates, said some 600 families among the 1,600 who lived in the Gaza settlements were expected to remain after midnight.

And CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger reports the number expected to still be in the settlements at midnight is estimated at about 10,000 people: 4,000 Gaza residents and the rest supporters who came from outside. They'll face off against 55,000 soldiers and police.

The army is keeping everyone guessing, says Berger: No one knows which settlement will be targeted first.

Hundreds of die-hard opponents continued trying to reach Gaza, trampling over Israeli cropland near the border to circumvent army roadblocks. About 1,000 more protesters camped outside Sharon's Jerusalem residence.

The military commander of the Gaza sector, Brig. Gen. Dan Harel, said the army had been working with the Palestinian Authority on the evacuation and the "cooperation is very good." At Israel's request, Palestinian police dispersed several marches that were threatening to move toward Israeli positions, he said.

The level of Palestinian attacks had fallen sharply, he said, with only three incidents recorded since the evacuation began on Monday. No one was hurt in any of those.

Disclosing the first details of the army's intentions, Harel told reporters that Neve Dekalim would be among the first settlements to be targeted by the evacuation troops. He said the soldiers "will ask them to leave" and try to avoid using strong-arm force.

Palestinians held noisy demonstrations in Gaza City to celebrate the Israeli pullout. Young men cruised the city in open cars, some firing rifles into the air and brandishing rocket launchers.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called a meeting of leaders from the mainstream Fatah faction and the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups to coordinate their plans once the Israelis leave.

The departure marks a historic point in the Mideast conflict. Although Israel relinquished land to Egypt captured in 1967 in exchange for a peace treaty, it is the first time Israel is withdrawing from territory claimed by the Palestinians for their own state.

Sharon's critics say he's giving away Gaza without getting anything in return. Some say it's part of the Jews' biblical heritage and Sharon has no right to abandon it.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair sent Sharon a message of support. "I greatly admire the courage with which you have developed and implemented this policy," he wrote.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said he was determined to complete the withdrawal "in as little time as possible."

Mofaz also told the Palestinians that it was too early to celebrate. He said that after the last settler is evacuated, it would take at least another month before Israel hands them the settlement areas. "We have told them this at every meeting, but I believe they still haven't grasped that," he told a news conference.

On the last day in Gaza for most of them, settlers held tearful ceremonies of farewell to farms and gardens they had fashioned from sand and scrub. Religious settlers called it a "funeral."

Some settlers, especially those threatening to resist eviction, maintained a normal routine until the end.

Jewish settlers have vowed to resist the pullout peacefully. But officials estimate Jewish extremists from outside Gaza, many of them fervently religious teenagers, have infiltrated the settlements in recent weeks.

But not all are teenagers.

"I'm a 64-year-old grandmother. I have nine grandchildren and they're going to have to take me out bodily," Rachel Saperstein told CBS News. "This is one grandma who is not going to go quietly."

Settlers and thousands of supporters at Neve Dekalim inaugurated a mikvah, or ritual bath, with joyous songs of prayer and dancing with the Torah, the hand-scripted five books of Moses, in a celebration deliberately timed to snub the eviction orders.

"Even if realistically the evacuation can be seen on the horizon, we are trying to continue our lives," said Lior Kalfer, the community leader.

Although a majority of Israelis support the withdrawal, CBS News Correspondent David Hawkins reports the evacuation has bitterly divided the country. Like many others, Saperstein feels betrayed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"He lied to the people," said Saperstein, a former Brooklyn resident who moved to Israel right after the Six Day War.

Stewart Tucker, a former Cleveland, Ohio, biology teacher who was among the founders of the first Gaza settlement in 1975, harvested celery stalks with box cutters as he would on a normal day. "I don't know if we will get paid for it but at least we are picking," he said.

Day One of the evacuation on Monday went with little trouble as troops refrained from forcing their way into settlements to distribute eviction notices, warning settlers that anyone left in Gaza after midnight Tuesday would be evicted and could lose part of their government-promised compensation often amounting to several hundred thousand dollars.

The army signaled a tougher line after daybreak Tuesday when they burst into Neve Dekalim and toppled the main entrance gate to clear the way for some 120 moving trucks to enter. Officers cut the electric gate with a saw, then dragged the metal barrier away and threw it on the side of a road.

Within hours, a crowd of predominantly young people blocked the entrance to the settlement and refused to let the trucks enter. When security forces tried to push back the crowd, scuffles erupted.

Protesters set fire to two large garbage bins and white paint splattered in the road. They also pelted police with eggs, stones and plastic water bottles while a water cannon put out the fire. One policeman had burning acid thrown at his face and several people had bloody faces. Four officers were hurt, police said.