Gazans celebrate, take over former settlements

updated 3:32 p.m. ET Sept. 12, 2005

RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Joyous Gazans flooded into empty Jewish settlements Monday and Palestinians climbed ropes and clambered over walls dividing this border town to join a chaotic celebration of the end of 38 years of Israeli military rule over the Gaza Strip.

Plans by Palestinian police to bar crowds from the settlements quickly disintegrated. Militant groups hoisted flags, fired wildly into the air and set abandoned synagogues ablaze, illustrating the weakness of the security forces and concerns about their ability to control growing chaos in Gaza. The pullout is widely seen as a test for Palestinian aspirations of statehood.

Among those crossing were purported members of the radical Islamic group, Hamas, who waved the group's green flag on Egyptian territory, raising immediate concern over Egypt's ability to meet Israeli demands to prevent militants from leaving Gaza.

Egyptian security forces stood by and let crossings in both directions take place, describing it as a "humanitarian" gesture to let people separated for years reunite. Security officials also suggested the crossings would be short-lived as Egypt deploys 750 heavily armed troops to secure its border with Gaza.

Before nightfall, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas arrived at the crossing and raised a Palestinian flag.

Israeli soldiers long guarded the high walls splitting the Egyptian town of Rafah against cross-border infiltrators smuggling weapons and other contraband from Egypt into the volatile Palestinian territory. But within hours of the Israeli withdrawal, hooded Palestinian militants toting guns stood atop the Palestinian wall as grinning Gazans climbed over to meet relatives.

Two walls — one Egyptian and the other long guarded by Israel — run through Rafah, separated by a narrow strip.

Gunfire interrupts celebration
At one point, a group of people strutted and chanted around a large Hamas flag on the Egyptian side. But the dance came to a brief, sudden halt after a celebratory burst of gunfire on the Palestinian side.

Egyptian border guards shot and killed a Palestinian along the Gaza-Egypt border, authorities said.

Elsewhere, doctors said three Palestinians drowned off the Gaza coast as hundreds rushed to the beach just hours after Israeli troops pulled out. The beach in southern Gaza had been off-limits to Palestinians for years because Jewish settlements ran along the coast.

"I came here because the Palestinian people have sacrificed a lot and it was Hamas that led this sacrifice," said one man identifying himself only as a Palestinian Muslim.

"We have achieved victory in Gaza and we came to wrap it up in Egypt," he added before the crowd bowed in praise to God and touched their foreheads to the dusty ground.

The last column of Israeli tanks rumbled out of Gaza just before sunrise, completing the withdrawal code-named "Last Watch." Troops locked a metal gate and hoisted their flag on the Israeli side of the border.

‘An era has ended’
"The mission has been completed, and an era has ended," said Israel's Gaza commander, Brig. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the last soldier to leave the strip.

As soldiers poured out of Gaza throughout the night, jubilant Palestinians rushed into the abandoned settlements, turning the night sky orange as fires blazed. Women shrieked in joy, teens set off fireworks and crowds chanted "God is great!"

"Today is a day of joy and happiness that our people were deprived of in the past century," Abbas said, adding that the Palestinians still have a long path toward statehood.

He denounced Israeli rule in Gaza as "aggression, injustice, humiliation, killing and settlement activity."

By midday, the situation had calmed, and curious Palestinians quietly toured the abandoned Jewish settlements as feelings of newfound freedom sank in.

"Since last night, I have been in the street, for no reason, just to breathe the air of freedom," said Samir Khader, a farmer in northern Gaza who needed Israeli permits to go in and out of his village, flanked by Israeli settlements. "I don't know what the future will bring, but at least, I can come in and out of my house at any time."

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