The army and police prepared for this difficult task both physically and informationally. Each unit had a plan for evacuating specific families, accounting for the numerical and age composition and even the presence of pets. In addition, attention was paid, for example, to whether any relatives of those being evicted had been killed at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.
The behavior of right-wing extremists, opponents of the liquidation of Jewish settlements, may be unpredictable. A special document allows police and soldiers to open fire to kill in the event of a threat to life and under the condition that "there are no other possibilities for self-defense." Resistance to the military will be offered not only by some settlers from the Gaza Strip, but also by right-wing extremists from other parts of Israel who have made their way to help them. In recent days, according to some estimates, about 2,700 people, mostly young people, have entered the Strip.
The Jewish population of the Gaza Strip exceeds 8,000 people; of these, according to forecasts, more than 60% will voluntarily leave their homes. The operation to liquidate the settlements involves 60,000 soldiers and police officers. Some of them – without weapons – will be directly engaged in the eviction. The rest – with weapons in hand – will prevent Palestinian attacks and counter resistance from right-wing extremists. Anticipating protest actions, the army and police trained to act in any conditions: for example, in a situation where protesters chain themselves, or if they take a Palestinian hostage. Measures were also practiced against Jewish extremists hiding on a roof, barricading themselves in a house, or even in a synagogue.
And yet the Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Dan Halutz, in an open letter to the servicemen involved in the operation, was forced to warn: "We have prepared for different scenarios and worked out various options, but the reality we will soon face is more complicated." The main difficulties referred to here are moral and psychological. It is impossible to imagine exercises that would morally prepare soldiers to use force against their own. "Remember that you are confronting not an enemy but our brothers," the Chief of the General Staff's letter says.
Carrying out the order of the authorities, the servicemen realize that they are going against "brothers" only because they do not want to leave the land that the same soldiers and officers once conquered, then defended, and later guarded. Not all servicemen, being an instrument in the hands of politicians, agree with their decision. Never mind the soldiers, when even the commander of the Southern Military District of Israel, Dan Harel, responsible for implementing the "unilateral disengagement plan," was never its supporter. But Harel's conscience is at rest. If the operation is successful, he will be appointed military attaché in Washington. Predicting what awaits the rest of Israel can be done with less certainty.
Palestinians perceive what is happening as a positive outcome of the long armed confrontation. In promoting such an assessment of events, the main role is played by Hamas extremists, who directly waged the armed struggle. Members of the terrorist organization are thus trying to demonstrate that it is they (unlike the ruling Fatah party) who know how to achieve results. Hamas even announced a competition for the best poster dedicated to the Israelis' departure from Gaza. The poster should convey the idea: the evacuation of settlers is a victory for all extremist organizations and Hamas in particular.
In reality, however, the occupation of the Gaza Strip merely gives way to a blockade of the territory. Practically nothing will change in the lives of Palestinians. Israel will not allow the Palestinian Authority to have its own maritime border or a border with Egypt, since in that case weapons would flood into the hands of terrorists.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon perfectly understands that the authority of terrorist groups will increase, and the pressure from the international community and Israeli leftists will not weaken. Europe will insist on the removal of settlements from Judea and Samaria, from where only four populated areas are being evacuated so far. Left-wing Israeli organizations already perceive the withdrawal from Gaza as a fait accompli and are holding protests "For an end to the occupation of the West Bank."
According to the president of the Institute for the Study of Israel and the Middle East, Yevgeny Satanovsky, the withdrawal from Gaza is not related to security, but is the result of Sharon's personal guarantees to US President Bush and the leftist camp. International law enforcement agencies have long wanted to go after Sharon himself, and the Israeli prosecutor's office after the prime minister's sons. Satanovsky believes that Sharon agreed to the evacuation of settlements precisely in order to obtain guarantees of immunity.
Pushing his plan for unilateral separation from the Palestinian Authority, Sharon neglected a national referendum on this issue, since it threatened to bury his plans. The prime minister replaced particularly intractable ministers from his own Likud party with politicians from the "left" so that his plan would be approved in a government vote. Thus, Sharon will no longer receive support either in his own "right-wing" political camp or among the people. The withdrawal from the Gaza Strip marked the imminent end of his political career.