Israelis raid Gaza hotel, remove settlers

NEVEH DEKALIM, Gaza -- Israeli forces yesterday declared the main Jewish settlement block in the Gaza Strip a closed military area and moved in force against a beachfront hotel there that had become a center of radical religious Zionists, some of whom had threatened to use violence to block the upcoming Israeli disengagement from the area.

The closure of the Gush Katif area -- far in advance of the scheduled mid-August onset of the withdrawal -- was imposed after three days of escalating physical and verbal violence, during which young zealots, many of them from militant Jewish settlements in the West Bank, pelted soldiers and Palestinians with stones and fists.

The settlers also harshly insulted the religion and morals of Palestinians, police, and troops.

A ringleader of the group said openly that they were trying to create an explosion in the area that would stop plans approved by Israel's parliament and Cabinet to evacuate all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank.

The military's actions yesterday seemed designed to show radical settlers the government's resolve to prevent such an explosion and to keep the disengagement plan on track.

It is a criminal offense to be in a closed military area without the army's permission.

About two hours after the closure was announced, hundreds of police stormed the defunct Palm Beach Hotel near the Mediterranean seaside settlement of Shiryat Hayam, where between 150 and 200 extremists had stockpiled food and barricaded themselves behind barbed wire. Most of them were bused out of Gaza and released in Israel proper.

Only four people were arrested. Officials said nonresidents of the Gaza settlements would not be readmitted to the area.

Israeli naval craft cruised offshore and border police patrolled the beachfront during the clash.

''There's a whole lot of cops, about 400 of them. They're coming from all directions -- the sea, the sides, wherever," said Yair Hazan, a native of the main settlement, Neveh Dekalim, as the authorities moved in. Hundreds of national police scaled low-rise hotel buildings on ladders and entered through doors and windows above the barricaded ground floor.

''There's a lot of clubs being swung. It's a mess," said Hazan, speaking by mobile telephone to a Globe correspondent. ''They are throwing people around like rag dolls."

In a later call, when he was being bused out of the area, Hazan said that police had beaten him and his brother with their fists.

Though there were widespread allegations from opponents of the Gaza evacuation that the police and army used excessive violence toward the settlers, as of last night there were no specific reports of severe injuries resulting from the clash.

Fistfights, shoving, and shouting between members of the uniformed services and settlers raged along the road from the Israeli border toward the hotel through much of the afternoon.

''Have you no hearts?" one settler cried at officers at a major interchange. ''Are you not ashamed?" yelled another. ''Look me in the eye and tell me you are not ashamed."

Many shouted ''Nazi!" at soldiers, until one responded emotionally to his accuser: ''You don't know me; you don't know where I come from; you don't know what I have been through. How can you say this to me?" Shaking visibly, he was led away by other soldiers.

Two roadblocks were set up in Israel proper on the approaches to the Kisufim border crossing to Gush Katif.

Another new roadblock was set up inside the settlements area.

Armored vehicles and reinforcements were massed at Kisufim.

Though some reporters were allowed to cross the border after the closure was announced, many were not.

Directors of the Foreign Press Association protested that the blockage was a violation of commitments made by Israeli officials that open coverage of disengagement events would be allowed.

Army spokesmen said last night that the general closure of the area might be lifted if the situation calmed down, but some observers in Israel said the violent behavior of the settlers and Jewish militants had jolted the government and military into making an essential move, one that should not be undone.

Michael Oren, a specialist in Middle East history at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem think tank, said this week's clashes -- in which settlers stoned soldiers, severely beat a Palestinian youth, and invaded a community of Gaza Palestinians that has lived at peace with the settlements throughout the 38-year occupation -- ''spooked the army into action. They realized that if they did not do this, it would greatly complicate the disengagement. Now the army realizes that if they don't close it off, radical elements of the settlement movement will bring in great numbers of people who will barricade themselves in buildings and make all kinds of trouble."

Oren said that ''the radical settlers blundered" by initiating incidents ''which brought the entire issue to a head. If they had been quiet, they could have continued to move in large numbers of people." Now, he said, the authorities should recognize that closing the area to nonresident extremists ''is a prerequisite for disengagement."

On Wednesday night, apparently as the decision to declare a closed military zone and evacuate the hotel was being made at upper levels of the government, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel said in an interview with the newspaper Haaretz that he was outraged at the stoning and beating of a Palestinian youth by Israelis in Gaza earlier that day.

''This bothers me exceptionally," Sharon said, according to the report. ''This is an act of savagery, vulgarity, and irresponsibility."

He said the perpetrators were not settlers but members of the banned ultranationalistic Kach organization, and vowed that police would find and charge those responsible.

Sharon said he also was incensed by a threat from Kach members to, in the prime minister's words, ''set the country on fire" if authorities moved against the seaside hotel, where radical settlers had been congregating in increasing numbers for weeks. ''These things must be utterly uprooted," Sharon said.

Palestinian leaders are watching the developing drama with trepidation -- and getting nowhere in their attempts to turn meetings with the Israelis to make arrangement for the disengagement into a negotiation of broader issues.

''Sharon has managed to refocus international attention from the road map" -- a Middle East peace plan backed by President Bush, the European Union, and Russia -- ''to his own disengagement plan," said Tayseer Nasrallah, leader of the Fatah movement in Nablus.

''He is imposing his will. If the disengagement plan somehow fails, we will have to acknowledge that he is one of the smartest leaders in the world."

Radin reported from Tel Aviv and Tuval from Gaza. Globe correspondent Sa'id Ghazali also contributed to this report.Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com