Good riddance to Gaza, many Israelis say

One Israeli Prime Minister called Gaza "a bone stuck in our throats". Another wished it would just sink into the sea. In Hebrew, "Go to hell" sounds almost like "Go to Gaza", an irony some Israelis savour.

With settlers already gone and the army following on their heels early next week, many Israelis are as glad to say good riddance to the tiny coastal territory as the Palestinians are to see them leave after 38 years of occupation.

It's a sentiment that resonates especially among Israeli army veterans with bitter memories of dangerous duty in the Gaza Strip guarding a few thousand Jews isolated from a hostile population of 1.4 million Palestinians.

"Thank God another generation of soldiers won't have to risk their lives for so little reason," said Avi, 46, a former army reservist who served in Gaza in the late 1980s when it was a hotbed of the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising.

He recalls long stints when his unit, sweating in heavy flak jackets, patrolled crowded refugee camps or chased stone throwing youths through rutted streets flowing with sewage.

Israel's presence in Gaza is now ending only after a second, bloodier cycle of violence, this one erupting in 2000. Palestinian fighters traded their rocks for bombs and bullets and the army responded with tanks and helicopter-fired missiles.

To many Israelis, Gaza - one of the most densely populated places on earth - had long been a costly liability, with polls consistently showing a majority willing to part with it despite religious Jews' claims of a biblical birthright.

As military casualties mounted, public pressure grew, helping to give Prime Minister Ariel Sharon momentum to uproot Gaza's 21 settlements in a plan he billed as a disengagement from conflict with the Palestinians.

Shlomo Vishinsky may have played a key role. Onstage, he is one of Israel's most popular comic actors. Offstage, he is a father still grieving for his son Lior, a 20-year-old conscript blown apart in a troop carrier during an ambush on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip in May 2004.

Using his celebrity status, Mr Vishinsky called repeatedly for Israel to get out of Gaza so that other families would be spared such loss and the Palestinians' suffering would be eased.

In one political satire, Mr Vishinsky cross-dressed as the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir who speaks to Mr Sharon from heaven appealing to him to make peace with the Palestinians.

Like a lot of Israelis, Mr Vishinsky sympathises with Gaza settlers evicted from their homes, many decrying it as a betrayal of divine will and a reward for Palestinian violence.

But he says successive governments were wrong to encourage them to move there, often with state subsidies. "We should never have been in Gaza. It didn't belong to us," said Mr Vishinsky, 61, an avowed leftist. "It has cost too much blood."

In the Bible, Gaza's biggest moment came when a captive Samson pulled down a Philistine temple on his head. By contrast, the West Bank, where 245,000 settlers live in 120 enclaves, was a cradle of Jewish culture and religion.

In the 1967 Middle East war, Israel had hoped to bypass Gaza, seeing it as a potential quagmire. "A bone stuck in our throats" was the way Prime Minister Levi Eshkol described it after the army captured it from the Egyptians.

Some historians say Prime Minister Menachem Begin tried in vain to get Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat to take Gaza back in peace talks that led to Israel's return of Sinai in 1982.

"I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but that won't happen, and a solution must be found," Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said in 1992.

The next year he signed the Oslo accords with Yasser Arafat, turning over much of Gaza to Palestinian rule but keeping control of settlements covering up to one-fifth of the strip.

Since 2000, Israelis' image of Gaza has been coloured by its role as a bastion of Islamist groups dedicated to destroying the Jewish state and behind a campaign of deadly suicide bombings.

The army has assassinated many militant leaders, and Palestinians, who blame it for Gaza's woes, say Israel has used security as a pretext for turning the strip into a giant prison.

Now Palestinians fear Gaza is all they will get for a future state as Israel strengthens its hold on the occupied West Bank.

It was less than two years ago that Mr Sharon decided it was time to leave Gaza, saying it was no longer of strategic value and now posed a demographic threat to Israel's Jewish character.

The general public's support, or at least acquiescence, was made clear by the relative ease with which the settlements were evacuated last month in a few days' time.

It was not that Israelis were unmoved by the fate of Gaza's 8,500 settlers. Hundreds of thousands of rightists had flocked to protest rallies before the pull-out, warning that Gaza would become a "terror base" for launching new attacks on Israel.

But commentators said Israel's silent majority had finally spoken, saying it wanted to give Sharon's plan a chance. Just to be sure, though, Israel is building a high-tech barrier on its border with the strip, expanding a single fence line to three.

Chronology

Israel plans to complete its military withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip early next week after removing 8,500 settlers from 21 enclaves and demolishing their houses. Following is a chronology of Gaza's history:

3,000 BC-7th century AD: Gaza becomes inhabited during Bronze Age and turns into crossroads of ancient civilisations and strategic outpost on Mediterranean seaboard. Rulers include Egyptian pharaohs, Assyrians, Philistines, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Jews and Byzantines among others.

c.6th century: Prophet Mohammed's grandfather reputedly buried in Gaza.

7th-16th centuries: Gaza under dominion of Islamic Arabs, Christian Crusaders and Egyptian Mamelukes.

8th century: Imam al-Shafa'i, a giant of Islamic jurisprudence, born in Gaza.

16th-early 20th centuries: Gaza ruled by Ottoman Turks. World War One: Ottoman Empire disintegrates and Gaza becomes part of British Mandate Palestine.

1948-49: Egypt captures Gaza during Arab-Israeli war that leads to creation of Israel. Gaza's population triples as it absorbs about a quarter of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees fleeing areas now part of Israel.

Under Egyptian administration, Gaza became key breeding ground for militant Palestinian opposition to Israel.

1956: Israel occupies Gaza in Suez conflict with Egypt. Israeli forces withdraw under international pressure in 1957.

June 1967: Israel captures Gaza, along with West Bank, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula, in war with Arab states.

1967-70: Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) guerillas active in Gaza, leading to Israeli army crackdowns and demolitions in refugee camps.

1970: First Jewish settlement in post-1967 Gaza, Kfar Darom, is founded. Twenty more created over ensuing 30 years.

March 1979: UN Security Council determines that Israeli settlements in Gaza and West Bank "have no legal validity" and pose serious obstruction to peace.

April 1982: Israel withdraws from Sinai under peace deal with Egypt. Some Jewish settlers move from Sinai to Gaza.

December 1987: First Palestinian Intifada (uprising) erupts after Israeli truck hits oncoming vehicles at Erez border crossing, killing four Palestinian workers.

1994: Palestinian Authority with limited self-rule powers is formed after interim peace deals with Israel. Longtime PLO leader Yasser Arafat returns from exile to Gaza.

Late 1990s: Gaza gains measure of prosperity with increasing trade and employment for its workers in Israel.

September 2000: Second Palestinian revolt begins after Camp David negotiations on Palestinian statehood in Gaza and the West Bank collapse. Israel seals off Gaza.

2000-2004: Violence escalates. Palestinian militants stage thousands of shooting, bombing, rocket and mortar attacks on settlers and soldiers in Gaza, with frequent attempts to infiltrate settlements or breach border fence.

Israel's army carries out many raids and air strikes against militants that also kill civilian bystanders in crowded urban areas. Thousands of Palestinians made homeless or lose livelihoods because of Israeli demolitions of housing and flattening of farmland. Israel says such moves aimed to root out militants; Palestinians called it collective punishment.

April 2002: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says, "The fate of Netzarim is the fate of Tel Aviv," hinting Israel would no sooner cede Gaza settlements than it would its major cities.

December 2003: Mr Sharon unveils "Disengagement Plan" calling for removal of all Gaza settlements and a few in the West Bank.

March 2004: Israel assassinates Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in missile attack. Hamas political chief Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi killed in air strike a month later.

February 2005: Ceasefire agreed at Israeli-Palestinian summit. Deal significantly reduces but does not end violence.

August 2005: Israel evacuates about 15,000 settlers and their supporters from Gaza and a corner of the West Bank over six-day period.

September 15, 2005: Israel due to complete military withdrawal from Gaza, followed by takeover of Palestinian Authority.