Government tries to empty out Gaza settlements

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip -- Gabi Glasser and his wife, Rotem, were so horrified by Israel's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip this summer they pulled their five young children out of school, found a cramped house in a small settlement and moved in, even bringing their piano as a symbol of their intention to stay.

Glasser says he hopes his family's move from the West Bank to Gaza will help stop the withdrawal, and he is far from alone.

As Israel works to persuade some of the 8,500 Gaza settlers to leave voluntarily before the pullout begins July 20, more people keep moving in. Sympathetic families are coming with moving vans, hawkish politicians are renting homes and busloads of ultra-Orthodox students are establishing new religious schools, or yeshivas.

It is unclear how many people have moved in so far, but local activists expect many more to arrive during the weeklong Passover holiday beginning Saturday night. Some predict as many as 100,000 sympathizers could come in a show of solidarity, with thousands of them staying. One group has started stockpiling donated sleeping bags, tents and canned food for the new arrivals.

Government eyes situation

The government says it is aware of the problem, but it does not want to stop families from traveling to the area, especially during the week of Passover, when schools and government offices are closed and many families take vacations.

"We know people are planning and people are moving," said Assaf Shariv, spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "It's going to make the evacuation a little bit harder of course, but it will be harder for everybody, not just the soldiers."

The government already has said it will not allow anyone else to move to Gaza, and the army plans to greatly restrict access in the weeks before the withdrawal.

But for now, new residents continue arriving, and there are few signs that people are preparing to leave. On a recent day, there were no moving trucks or people packing up. One family was even renovating its roof to protect the house from homemade rockets launched from nearby Palestinian towns.

Though polls show a majority of Israelis support the pullout, security forces are preparing for the possibility of fierce anti-withdrawal demonstrations -- and even violence -- this summer.

None of those moving in, nearly all of them religious Jews, spoke of physically resisting the pullout, but they said they hoped their presence would complicate the withdrawal and boost the settlers' morale.

"We decided to be with our good friends who are going through a very difficult time," said Ilit Eitam, 52, who moved here two weeks ago from her house in the Golan Heights with her husband, Effie, a hardline parliamentarian. "If there will be many people like us here, (the pullout) will not happen."

Gila Shashar and her husband, Avner, a rabbi at a Jerusalem yeshiva moved into a tiny house in the Netzer Hazzani settlement less than two weeks ago.

"It is forbidden to let this happen," she said.

Avner Shashar brought 15 students with him and set up a branch of the yeshiva in a small home in the settlement.

The Shashars have a long history of establishing homes as a form of political protest.

They moved to the settlement of Yamit in the Sinai Peninsula six months before Israel razed it and turned the territory over to Egypt in 1982 under a peace agreement. Before moving to Gaza, they lived in the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem's walled Old City, where their presence -- considered an affront by local Arabs -- was intended to prove the point that Jerusalem is Israel's undivided capital.

They had discussed moving here since Sharon unveiled his withdrawal plan last year. A few weeks ago, they pulled the youngest three of their eight children out of school and finally made the move.

"You can't just sit at home and be sorry," she said.

Dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jews from the Lubavitch sect also opened a yeshiva in recent days, turning a wood cottage built on the dunes across the road from the main settlement of Neve Dekalim into a synagogue.

The students sleep on thin mattresses scattered on a tarp covering the sand in a ratty old army tent next to the building.

"It's an answer to Sharon. You want to kick us out, we will bring more," said Dovid Okunov, 21, a student from New York who was working his cell phone trying to persuade more students to come.

"If we have to get more tents, we'll get more tents. If we have to expand to different settlements, we'll expand."

Glasser, who called the pullout "insane" and "mad," decided to move here three months ago because he wanted to back up his beliefs with action.

"Whoever believes in God knows that every single thing one does can change the whole situation," he said.

The move presented a series of challenges for his family.

They exchanged their four-bedroom home in the West Bank settlement of Talmon for a two-bedroom house in the Katif settlement in Gaza. They had to put their children, aged 1 to 10, in new schools and day-care centers. Glasser has to commute two hours each way to his job as an electrical engineer in Jerusalem.

He and his wife discussed whether to make the move permanent or temporary. In the end, they decided to move all their furniture, including the piano, and rent a house for six months.

"After that, nobody knows what," said Glasser, 36.

They thought about the impact on their children, who were eating ice cream and running through a park in Neve Dekalim as Glasser spoke. But Glasser is not worried. They will witness an important chapter in their country's history, he said. They might be sad, but they will recover.

"I think it's a good lesson," he said.

With all the difficulties, Glasser said he does not regret his decision. He now feels his daily prayers have a deeper meaning, and sometimes he even cries as he prays, he said.

"We feel it so strongly," Glasser said. "On such an important day, in such an important place, we just wanted to be with the people."