It’s a sense of deja vu for evicted Sinai settlers

‘‘I will stay until they order me out,’’ Maoz (37), said at her red-tiled, ocean-view cottage in Elei Sinai on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip. ‘‘It will be hard to be uprooted again.’’

She and her husband plan to send their three young children away ahead of time to spare them the trauma.

Maoz was 14 when her family was forced out of the Jewish settlement of Yamit in Sinai in 1982 under a landmark peace treaty that returned the barren, desert peninsula to Egypt.

She was among some 5,000 settlers who watched their homes flattened to rubble on orders from Sharon, who as Defence Minister, directed the first removal of Israeli enclaves from land captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Scenes of Yamit holdouts making their last stand on rooftops are etched in Israel’s collective memory and evoke the upheaval many expect when the Gaza pullout gets under way on Wednesday. Further south, in the hardline religious settlements of Gush Katif, Army commanders are ready to use cranes to lower cages into position if they have to dislodge settlers who resist.

Soldiers have also been trained for more extreme scenarios. When Israel evacuated Yamit, dozens of ultranationalists holed themselves up in a bunker and threatened suicide, even dousing the walls with petrol, before they were persuaded to back down.

But in the more secular enclaves of northern Gaza, most people are packing and moving out voluntarily, leaving behind shuttered homes and parched gardens. Even those like Maoz who are staying to the last minute say they won’t put up a fight.

After their exodus from Egypt, many of Sinai’s evicted settlers set down roots in Gaza’s settlement blocs, where a memorial diorama was built to commemorate Yamit’s destruction. Not surprisingly, they feel doubly betrayed and are numbered among diehard settlers vowing to stay put in Gaza.

Now in her 60s, Malca Elbe proudly remembers how soldiers had to drag her out of Yamit during the evacuation. While she moved to a West Bank settlement, her sons gravitated to Gaza to live among Jews similarly imbued with faith that God had bequeathed the territory to Israel. ‘‘We pray for a miracle to stop Sharon’s madness,’’ Elbe said.

In North Gaza, many settlers say they came not for religion or ideology but for an idyllic lifestyle. They insist they live on territory that until 1967 was a UN ‘‘no man’s land’’ between Israeli and Egyptian forces. The Palestinians reject this.

Unlike settlers in hardcore enclaves, most of Elei Sinai’s residents have reluctantly accepted evacuation and are loading up trucks and trailers and quietly streaming out. But old Yamit evacuees are bucking the trend. —Reuters

Thousands rally in Tel Aviv

TEL AVIV: Tens of thousands of rightist Israelis opposed to a Gaza pullout rallied in central Tel Aviv on Thursday in what could be a final show of resolve to block evacuation of settlers from the occupied territory. The mass rally drew protesters vowing to prevent the withdrawal set to begin next Wednesday. Settlers and their supporters packed Rabin Square, named after slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and a traditional protest site for Israel’s dovish left. Polls show a narrow majority of Israelis back Sharon’s strategy for ‘‘disengaging’’ from conflict. REUTERS