Right-wing Israelis join hands in protest over Gaza

By Eric Silver in Jerusalem

26 July 2004

Tens of thousands of right-wing Israelis formed a 55-mile "human chain" from Gaza to Jerusalem yesterday in protest at Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate 21 Gaza Strip settlements by the end of next year.

Most of those lining the route to the Western Wall in the old city were young religious families, waving Star of David flags and sporting orange caps and T-shirts with the logo of the Gush Katif settlement block.

As I drove away, a few tried to block the main Jaffa Road, but the police gently moved them on. It was a good-natured picnic of a demonstration.

The organisers, who had called for a "forceful, but non-violent struggle" claimed a turnout of 100,000 to 150,000, including foreign Jewish and Christian supporters.

They chartered 800 buses to distribute them along the route. "The expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif would cut a link in Israeli society's spinal cord," read a leaflet.

Hava Lester Elboim, 32, a British immigrant, said: "We believe the government is making a big mistake. The Prime Minister is not acting in the national interest. He wants to go down in history as the man who took Israel out of Gaza. But we have a tiny land. We don't have anywhere else." Reminded that they shared it with three and a half million Arabs, she said: "The Arabs have 22 states. Look at all the space there is in Saudi Arabia. I'm not saying they should all go there. If they want to live here as good citizens, they're welcome to stay."

Aharon Levin, 23, a student, added: "The people of Israel want to hold on to every part of the land of Israel. It's one land, and it's not for sale."

Some of Mr Sharon's Likud party ministers and MPs joined the human chain, as did leading pro-settler rabbis, but the secular majority stayed away.

A poll published in the mass-circulation Ma'ariv newspaper on Friday found 65 per cent of Israelis ­ and 61 per cent of Likud voters ­ in favour of Mr Sharon's evacuation plan. The Likud support had risen 5 per cent in as many weeks.

Israeli soldiers shot dead six Palestinians yesterday, including two commanders of a militant group from President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, in a gun battle in the West Bank town of Tulkarm. Later an Israeli F-16 warplane fired two missiles at a militant stronghold in Gaza City.

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