Army Removing Die-hard Squatters from Yamit and Razing the Town

The army moved in force into Yamit today, systematically removing die-hard squatters and razing the town, block by block as each building was emptied. Resistance was reported to be “reasonable.”

Some resistors left voluntarily when soldiers ordered them out. In other cases, troops had to break down doors and carry squatters, kicking and screaming, to waiting buses. Some of the buses were pelted with rocks and bottles. Squartters on rooftops hurled bottles and buming tires at troops. Most of them were removed in cages lowered to the roofs by mobile cranes.

The army acted in accordance with pre-arranged plans. Each squad of soldiers was accompanied by a senior officer of at least Lt. Col. rank Women police and soldiers were employed to remove women squatters.

The squatters’ belongings were packed in crates by soldiers and loaded onto trucks for transportation out of the region. Private cars were towed to an enclosed parking lot where they could be claimed later by their owners.

The Israeli plan is to leave nothing of the town when the region is handed back to Egypt this Sunday. As each house was evacuated, it was reduced to rubble by bull-dozers.

Two pockets of resistance remained this afternoon. One is an abandoned war memorial tower where a group of university students led by Zachi Hanegbi, son of MK Geula Cohen of the ultranationalist Tehiya faction, barricaded themselves a week ago.

The other is an air raid shelter where followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Kach movement, many of them American-born Orthodox Jews, threatened mass suicide If soldiers tried to remove them. Kahane, who was helicoptered to Yamit today, reportedly dissuaded them from taking their lives. But as of this evening, the militants are still refusing to leave.