SHIRAT HAYAM (Gaza Strip), June 30: Police carried out a lightning raid on a bastion of opposition to the Gaza Strip pullout on Thursday after Israel sealed off its settlements in the territory for the first time ever.
A massive squad of around 1,200 border police swept through the Gaza beachfront complex in little more than 10 minutes, hauling settlers and radical supporters out of the building where around 150 people had been holed up.
Most appeared to have left without offering resistance although there were some scuffles. Many were later expelled from the territory.
The decision to raid the building was taken several hours after the territory was declared a closed military zone for fear that more radical opponents of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to pull out of Gaza were heading there.
“Our mission is over. There were no problems,” the head of the border police unit which conducted the raid, Uzi Barlev, told army radio.
“There were no wounded among the security forces or people on the inside.”
Around 15 busloads of border police had entered the building in the main southern settlement bloc of Gush Katif shortly before 2:30pm after the area had been sealed off.
They could be seen entering the hotel compound by using ladders to scale a surrounding fence. They then fanned out and rapidly took control of the roof and the restaurant area where many of the settlers had gathered.
One of the settlers said the operation had lasted a matter of minutes.
“From the minute they went to they came out it was no more than 10 minutes,” Arieh Saraf told AFP by phone from a police bus.
Saraf said he and many of his colleagues had been arrested and were being driven to the Kissufim border crossing. Police would only confirm four arrests.
The settlers had been prepared for a long stay in the hotel. Stockpiles of tinned food and water were left abandoned after the police raid.
Gaza area commander General Dan Harel had earlier declared all of the Gaza settlements off limits to anyone but residents, workers in essential services and journalists.
It was thought to be the first time the settlements had been declared off limits to Israeli citizens since the territory was captured from Egypt in 1967.
“Updated information exists regarding additional groups of Israelis that are moving towards the Gaza Strip in an attempt to provide backup for the rioters and further inflame the situation,” an army spokesman said.
The move followed widespread outrage over the tactics of radical youths, who critically wounded a Palestinian teenager in an attempted lynching on Wednesday.
Sharon called the attack on 16-year-old Khaled el Astal ‘a barbaric, wild and heartless act’.
Astal was attacked by the same youths who had also taken over a house in the Palestinian village of Mawassi, which lies inside Gush Katif.
Security forces later stormed the house after Sharon had given instructions to use an iron fist to tackle extremist opponents of his disengagement plan.
Few of the youths are residents of Gaza but have crossed into the territory in the countdown to the mid-August start date of the evacuation operation.—AFP
