Israeli Military Seals Off Gaza Strip

06/30/2005

PALM BEACH HOTEL, Gaza Strip (AP) - The Israeli military on Thursday isolated the Gaza Strip, declaring it a “closed military zone” to prevent Jewish extremists from going in after a series of violent incidents in recent days.

Extremists on Wednesday clashed with both Israeli security forces and Palestinian civilians, severely wounding a Palestinian. Settlers and soldiers also scuffled over the weekend as tempers are rising ahead of the planned Israeli pullout from Gaza.

“In the past day there has been another serious escalation of extremist activity,” an army statement said. “There is intelligence information that more extremist groups are moving toward the Gaza Strip with the intention of strengthening their friends and to escalate the provocative acts.” The statement said nonresidents would be prevented from entering the area.

The army sealed settlements, preventing residents from traveling between the outposts, in spite of objections by settlers that the action would disrupt their lives.

Soldiers also encircled a Gaza Strip hotel, the Palm Beach Hotel, in which Jewish settlers have been holed up, taking up positions on the coast and setting the stage for a possible operation to remove extremists from inside the structure.

Extremists have occupied the derelict hotel for weeks. They have surrounded the area with barbed-wire and stockpiled food. Israeli media have reported in recent weeks military intentions to raid the hotel and arrest those inside.

In an interview published Thursday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he ordered police to crack down on the extremists.

“This bothers me exceptionally. This is an act of savagery, vulgarity and irresponsibility,” Sharon told the Haaretz daily. “The country’s citizens must understand this danger, and every measure must be taken to end this rampaging.”

The extremists, who are opposed to the pullout from Gaza and part of the West Bank, clashed with soldiers and Palestinians before being evicted from a house they commandeered on the Gaza sea shore Wednesday.

During the violence a Palestinian youth was seriously wounded when some of the Jewish youths cornered him, throwing stones at him and beating him unconscious. The incident was caught on film and sparked widespread condemnation across Israel.

Declaring Gaza a closed military area allows the army and police to remove anyone without a resident permit, a tactic allowing greater martial control over the Gaza. Officials had said they reserved the right to seal off the occupied territory, saying the decision to do so would depend on the level of unrest.

Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra said police were doing all they could to apprehend those behind Wednesday’s violence, which he called an attempted lynching. “We are obligated to find those who were behind this,” he told Israel Radio.

The clash in Gaza showed that a handful of violent extremists could change the nature of Sharon’s “disengagement” plan, from unarmed soldiers dragging protesting but otherwise peaceful settlers from their homes, to violent clashes, possibly with firearms, between security forces and extremists.

Disengagement, or Israel’s withdrawal from all Gaza settlements and four West Bank settlements, is set to begin in mid-August.

“The battle now is not over the disengagement plan, but over the image and future of Israel and under no circumstances can we allow a lawless gang to try take control of life in Israel,” Sharon told Haaretz.

The clashes came as extremists also attempted to tie up traffic throughout Israel, blocking several major intersections around Israel and spilling oil and scattering nails on a highway. Police used a water cannon to disperse protesters blocking a highway in Jerusalem, displaying a new determination to counter the disruptions.

Lawmaker Yossi Sarid of the dovish Meretz Party accused the police of failing to do more to prevent the violence in Gaza.

“What a pathetic country that the prime minister has to give an order to apprehend those who carried out a lynching,” Sarid told Israel Radio. “Is there any one in the army or in the police.... Who can explain why they were not arrested at the scene.”

Settler leaders also condemned the incident, blaming it on a violent fringe group. “There is no connection between Judaism and those who carried out this,” said Shaul Yahalom, a lawmaker form the National Religious Party.