Tel Aviv, Israel (AP) – Twenty years ago, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, dismantling 21 Jewish settlements and pulling out its troops. With Israel embedded in almost two years, the Friday anniversary of the groundbreaking departure is coming War with Hamas It means that it will devastate Palestinian territory and that it will likely maintain its troops there for a long time in the future.
Israel’s departure, including the removal of four Israeli-occupied settlements, was Ariel Sharon’s controversial attempt to begin negotiations with the Palestinians. However, this severely divided Israeli society and led to Hamas empowerment. The meaning of continuing to reverberate today.
The emotional image of Jews torn from their homes by Israeli soldiers galvanized the movements of Israeli far-right and settlers. Anger helped them organize and increase political influence. This was part of the rise of hardline politicians such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gwil and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
On Thursday, Smotrich boasted an a Plans to expand the Eastern Reconciliation of Jerusalem It would “bury” the ideas of the future Palestinian state.
For the Palestinians, even if they welcomed their departure, it didn’t end Israel’s control over their lives.
On September 11, 2005, a Palestinian police officer wearing a new uniform behind a jeep as he waited to enter the former Jewish settlement of Dugit in the northern Gaza Strip.
Soon after that, Hamas won the election in 2006, then ousted Palestinian authority with a violent takeover. Israel and Egypt imposed closures on their territory, controlling the entry and exit of goods and people. Its intensity has changed over the years, but the closures have put the population in poverty and have entrenched a painful separation from Palestinians in the West Bank.
Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War. The Palestinians claim all three territories for future independent states.
Hamas’ height has been strengthened due to a one-sided departure
Israel has failed to justify the military or economic costs of maintaining Gaza’s heavily strengthened settlement, explained Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Misgav Institute and a think tank for the National Security Institute. In 2005, Gaza had around 8,000 Israeli settlers and 1.5 million Palestinians.
“There was no chance that these settlements could be as meaningful as they existed, flourished or became strategic anchors,” he said. In contrast, Michael said there are over half a million Israeli settlers in the West Bank, mostly living in a developed reconciliation bloc, with more than half a million Israeli settlers receiving more support from Israeli society. Most of the world considers illegal settlements under international law.
Israel unilaterally retreated and without coordination with Palestinian authority, increasing Hamas height among the Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli security forces carry settlers who are clinging to the settlers, whose daughters are clinging to and waiting for them to cling to as they evacuate from Kelem Atsmona village in the Gaza Strip on August 17, 2005. (AP Photo/David Silverman, Pool, File)
“This helped Hamas win the 2006 election because they used it and presented it as a very important achievement,” Michael said. “They viewed it as an outcome of resistance and justification for the continuation of armed resistance.”
footage of violence between Israeli settlers and Israeli soldiers also produced “open wounds” in Israeli society, Michael said.
“I don’t think the government will be able to do that in the future,” he said. Repeated negotiations with Palestinians over a two-state solution will limit flexibility for settlements in the West Bank.
“Brexit will never happen again. This is the price we are paying as a society, the price we are paying politically,” he said.
One of the first settlers is eager to return
Anita Tucker, now 79, was part of the first nine Jewish family to move to the Gaza Strip in 1976. She, her husband and their three children lived in the front post of the Israeli army near today’s Deia al-Barrah, when the settlement of Netzer Hazoni was built.
The Brooklyn native started a farm that grows vegetables on the harsh, tall sand dunes. She said she was good with her Palestinian neighbors in her first relationship, and they worked hard to build their homes and “beautiful communities.” She had two more children, three opting to stay and raise Netzer Hazoni.
She can recall the moment 20 years ago when 1,000 Israeli soldiers arrived at the gates of reconciliation and eliminated about 400 residents. Several of her neighbors protested and set the house on fire.
“It was obviously a mistake to leave. Arab lives were much worse, and Jewish lives were much worse on Rocket and October 7th,” she said.
Israeli police officers stormed the rooftop of a synagogue and fought dozens of protesters who tried to attack green liquid acid, sand and buckets with sticks in a Jewish settlement on the Gaza Strip on August 18, 2005.
Despite the passage of time, her family still “cras and longs for their home,” she said. Some of her ten grandchildren, including those who spent their childhood in the Gaza settlement, served in the present war and were near her old home.
“It’s hard to believe because of all the horrifying things we predicted, but we’re willing to build there again,” Tucker said.
Palestinians doubt Israel will retreat from Gaza again
After Israel’s withdrawal 20 years ago, many Palestinians described Gaza as a “field prison.” They had control over the inside – under the Hamas government, some supported it, but some saw it as forceful and brutal. But in the end, Israel had a grasp of its territory.
Many Palestinians believe Sharon will retreat and Israel can focus on solidifying its control in the West Bank through a reconciliation building.
Now some believe that more direct Israeli occupation is back in Gaza. After the 22 months of war, Israeli forces control over 75% of Gaza, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talking about maintaining long-term security controls after the war.
Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO network, said he does not expect Netanyahu to repeatedly withdraw Sharon’s entirety. Instead, he expects the army to continue to control the larger band of Gaza through the “buffer zone.”
According to him, the aim is to keep Gaza “invalid” to change demographics, referring to Netanyahu’s plan to encourage Palestinians to leave their territory.
Israel is “reoccupying the Gaza Strip” to prevent the Palestinian state, said Mostafa Ibrahim, author based in Gaza city, where homes were destroyed in the current war.
I missed the opportunity
Former Israeli Major General Dan Harrell, who was commander of the country’s southern part of the country during his departure, remembers the sacrifice of protecting thousands of settlers.
There were an average of 10 attacks per day on Israeli settlers and soldiers, including rockets, roadside bombs big enough to destroy tanks, roadside bombs big enough to attack Israeli soldiers and military positions, and frequent gunfights.
“If we took our kids’ school bus from one place to another, we needed military escorts,” Harrell said. “There was no future. People portray just how amazing it was, but it wasn’t great.”
Harrel says that while the decision to evacuate Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip was correct, Israel missed an important opportunity.
He said the worst was a one-sided retreat without concessions from the Palestinians of Gaza and the Palestinian authorities.
He also sharply criticised Israel’s policy of containment against Hamas after the release. There have been short but destructive conflicts over the years, but otherwise, they “give Hamas the opportunity to do whatever they wanted.”
On August 15, 2005, Israeli soldiers crying as fellow soldiers at the synagogue of a Jewish settlement in Nissanit in the northern Gaza Strip, crying on August 15, 2005.
“We had this blind spot with Hamas. We didn’t see them transforming from terrorist organizations into organized armies, having battalions, commanders and infrastructure,” he said.
The attack on October 7th, Israel’s biggest military intelligence failure, was not the result of the withdrawal, Harrell said. “The main problem is what we’ve done over 18 years.”
__
Associated Press Writer Fatma Khaled contributed from Cairo.
