Israeli settlers are leaving the Gaza Strip today

[Mazer]

I think this will be a historic week, and hopefully it will be a peaceful withdral and a turning point in the Israel/Palestine peace process. I couldn't imagine being told by my government to leave my home, so it amazes me that so many are leaving voluntarily. I wish them all the best.



Security alert for Gaza withdrawal
Palestinians brace for trouble as Jews begin to leave their homes

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Despite complaints about a lack of equipment, Palestinian Authority security forces Saturday were on high alert, stationed outside settlements across Gaza to prevent violence as the withdrawal of Israeli troops and thousands of Jewish settlers begins Sunday at midnight.

There is concern that Islamic radical groups such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad may incite violence that could disrupt the pullout, which involves the withdrawal of Israeli troops and about 9,000 Jewish settlers in Gaza and four small areas of the West Bank.

Israel has given the settlers until Wednesday to leave their homes before they will be forcibly removed.

Most of the settlers -- about 8,500 -- are to be evacuated from Gaza, where Israel has been closely coordinating with Palestinian security forces. A joint information and coordination center has been established at Erez Crossing along the northern Gaza-Israel border.

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Leaving Gaza: Lives Unsettled by the Pullout
By STEVEN ERLANGER

RAFIAH YAM, Gaza, Aug. 12 - Yaffa Hadad yanked out the dishwasher and started cleaning around it, as her husband's Palestinian workers bubble-wrapped the exercise bicycle and carried boxes out to the container on the sandy street.

A last pot simmered on the stove, under the blank spaces where the kitchen shelves had been, for the last Sabbath dinner of the Israeli settlement of Rafiah Yam.

All 27 families would gather, then many would go their own way - most to temporary housing prepared by the Israeli government in nearby Nitzanim or Mavqim, to figure out what to do with their lives.

All four Hadad children are here, including two from the army, but the family, which has held together, is now warring over where to go. Mrs. Hadad and the two older children want to stay close to Gaza, and take a temporary home in Nitzanim. But her husband, Kobi, has found a place to farm on a kibbutz in the north of Israel, at Bustan ha-Galil, near Acre.

"I feel like I'm going to die," Mrs. Hadad said. "We're in a big fight over where to go, and the kids are crying."

She wants to be near her friends and think about where to move next; he is desperate to get started. "I don't want to be aimless and jobless and bored," said Mr. Hadad, who was covered with sweat after helping a neighbor pack up a refrigerator. "I don't want to sit around a refugee camp and cry and mourn. I want to work, to wake up in the morning and work the land. There I can start on the first day."

The Hadads' struggle is a small, poignant reflection of the larger internal conflict produced by Israel's pullout from all 21 settlements in Gaza and 4 in the West Bank, due to start this week. After more than a year of speeches and debates, rallies and prayers, protests and conflict, votes and resignations, Israeli is finally going to pack up its presence in Gaza, including its vast military infrastructure, and leave it to the Palestinians, intending to end a 38-year occupation.

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