Leaving Gaza: Israel's plan to shut down the settlements

The Disengagement

Transcribed from the clipping

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his plan to shut all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four small settlements in the northern West Bank in 2004, after four years of Israeli-Palestinian confrontation had claimed the lives of more than 3,000 Palestinians and nearly 1,000 Israelis.

The disengagement marks the first time Israel will dismantle Jewish settlements in either the West Bank or Gaza, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.

The disengagement plan, formulated unilaterally by Israel, is unpopular with hard-line politicians in Sharon's Likud Party, who accuse him of caving in to Palestinian violence, and with ultra-Orthodox Jews, who argue the withdrawal ignores Israel's biblical connection to the territory.

Supporters of the plan hope it will revitalize peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. What about the Palestinians? The Palestinian Authority has promised a large security deployment for the period of the disengagement.

After it is completed, the 1.3 million Palestinian residents will be able to move freely within the Gaza Strip, but will have to pass through border checks to work in Israel or travel to the West Bank. Israel will continue to control Gaza airspace and all borders.

The Palestinian Authority is seeking Israeli permission to reopen the Gaza airport, which was closed by the Israeli military in 2000. Who's handling evacuations?

About 55,000 Israeli soldiers and police: Security forces will patrol the buffer zones between Palestinian and settler areas, and guard the border between Gaza and Israel. [From the analysis below the map:] Israel is withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, 38 years after capturing the territory in the Six-Day War.

But assuming the mission that begins this week is successful, will it renew the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians? “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has no neutral gear. You either go forward or backward,” said Lewis Roth, assistant executive director at Americans for Peace Now, a Jewish advocacy group in Washington.

Israel for now is retaining control over Gaza's borders, airspace and water, electricity and gas infrastructure, as well as the flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza. “There is an open-air prison. (Israelis) still control everything regarding the population,” said Michael Tarazi, legal adviser to the Palestinian Authority, in a telephone interview from Tel Aviv.

Context added by this archive

A full page. An annotated satellite map of the Gaza Strip naming all 21 Jewish settlements with their founding dates and populations, above a news analysis by Chronicle staff writer Jack Epstein headed AFTER GAZA DISENGAGEMENT, THEN WHAT? SPECULATION INTENSIFIES. Map credit: Todd Trumbull / The Chronicle.

Sources given as New York Times News Service, satellite image of Gaza Strip captured on June 6 by SPACE IMAGING/INTA-SPACETURK, image of surrounding area by EarthSat, Associated Press, Chronicle research.

Cite this item

"Leaving Gaza: Israel's plan to shut down the settlements," San Francisco Chronicle, 14 August 2005. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2005-010. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2005-010