The evacuation of militant squatters from Yamit continued today and by noon only a few pockets of resistance remained. But the soldiers, unarmed as they went about the task which many found distasteful, were pelted with rocks, bottles and gasoline bombs intermingled with curses.
The last groups of resisters include between 10-15 diehard followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Kach movement, holed up in a bomb shelter and about 20 rightwing university students barricaded in a war memorial. They are led by Zachi Hanegbi, son of MK Geula Cohen of the ultra-nationalist Tehiya movement. In addition, there are about 16 yeshiva students from the Orthodox township of Kiryat Arba on the West Bank, led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a leader of the religious nationalist Gush Emunim.
Levinger said his group had permission from the army to remain in Yamit until Sunday, the deadline for returning the region to Egypt. An unknown number of squatters evacuated earlier have managed to re-infiltrate the town.
Maj. Gen. Haim Erez, commander of the operation, said today that his men and women soldiers had performed their unpleasant duties very well. Many were in tears as they hauled away kicking, screaming resisters. The women soldiers had a particularly difficult time, carrying women squatters, some of them pregnant, to waiting buses. One soldier expressed dismay that small children were deliberately used by their parents to thwart evacuation.
Also hard on the soldiers was the sight of Yamit houses reduced to rubble by bull-dozers after they were emptied. Yamit, founded eight years ago, was considered one of the best designed and well kept Israeli towns. Government policy is to level it completely so that nothing remains when the Egyptians take over. “A horrible sight,” Erez said.
During the day, the remains of the only two persons buried in Yamit cemetery were disinterred for reburial in Israel. The bronze plaque was removed from the war memorial to be attached to a new memorial being built in Israel.
The last ditch resisters are not the original residents of Yamit who settled there years ago at the encouragement of the government and considered it their permanent home. They are infiltrators, chiefly Orthodox Jews from the West Bank and Golan Heights who are opposed to Israel giving up any territory for historical and religious reasons.
Most religious authorities concede that Sinai has no religious significance for Jews and was not within what they believe to have been Israel’s Biblical borders. But the resisters are now advancing their claim to the London religious grounds.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
