Palestinians assume control of Gaza Strip

GAZA CITY -- Palestinian troops and cheering crowds rushed early today into abandoned Jewish settlements -- areas that had been closed to them for decades -- as Israel sent its last remaining troops out of the Gaza Strip in convoys.

At dawn, cars waved on by smiling Palestinian policemen sped down a road that the Israeli Army had blocked for five years, to the former settlement of Netzarim. There, a woman loaded scrap metal from a demolished Israeli guard tower onto a donkey cart while Palestinian police in blue camouflage lounged under trees. Nearby, black-masked Islamic Jihad militants and teenagers on bicycles surveyed the smoking rubble as a bulldozer tore into the pillars of a domed synagogue which had been burned overnight.

''I'm happy," said Fares Wahaidi, 56, whose house stands yards from the gap in the barbed-wire fence leading to the settlement. ''I didn't sleep all night."

''Today is the day of liberation," said Ehab al-Baz, 21, a supporter of the Islamic militant group Hamas who lives in the neighboring refugee camp of Nusseirat. ''We must make a new Gaza, a free Gaza, an Islamic Gaza."

Na'aman Hamdan, 32, sat on a curb with his chin in his hands on the spot where he said his brother was killed trying to raid the settlement in 2003. ''I never dreamed to come here. I'm happy because the Israelis have been defeated," he said, echoing the claims of militant groups that their attacks forced the pullout. ''At the same time, I think that my brother paid the price."

Palestinians kissed the ground, carried off furniture and window frames from the debris of demolished houses, and flocked to beaches many had not seen in years.

Early this morning, crowds set fire to a synagogue in the abandoned settlement of Morag and climbed atop another waving the flags of militant factions such as Hamas.

Tensions over the synagogues, as well as over control of border crossings, had marred the handover as Palestinian officials said a late Israeli decision not to demolish the houses of worship placed an unfair burden in their hands. They worried that images of Palestinians celebrating the end of the hated Israeli presence by attacking synagogues could draw condemnation from the world or revenge from Jewish extremists.

But the mood turned to joy before dawn as triumphant crowds swarmed the settlements, crying out praise to God.

In Deir el-Balah, Khalil Bashir's family celebrated when the soldiers who had occupied most of their house for the past five years walked away Sunday.

Their neighbor, Kamal Abu Musabah, gazed from the top of a nearby building at a patch of dusty land behind a concrete security wall that he said the Israeli army confiscated from him in 1992. Brandishing the deed issued to his family in 1969 by the Israeli military government, he said he would soon return and replant it with olive trees.

But a dispute over control of the border crossings between Gaza and Egypt disrupted the final moments before Israel handed Palestinians control of the land occupied until last month by 21 Jewish settlements.

Senior Palestinian officials called the impasse the first crisis in Israeli-Palestinian relations since Israel removed 8,000 Jewish settlers from the 25-mile-long strip last month.

Israeli and Palestinian officials had planned to mark the day with ceremonial handshakes as Israelis lowered their flag for the last time over the settlement area.

But the Palestinians decided to boycott the ceremony yesterday to protest Israel's decision to close the Rafah border crossing into Egypt for the next six months and to reroute Palestinians through Israeli-controlled crossings.

Israel wants to retain some control of border crossings for fear that militants and weapons could pour through Rafah into the Gaza Strip. Palestinians say it's essential for goods and people to move freely to jump-start Gaza's stagnant economy, and fear that if they agree to temporary Israeli control, it will end up becoming permanent.

''They think that if they continue with their unilateral steps, the Palestinian Authority will surrender and accept the status quo," said Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian civilian administrator in charge of the Gaza handoff, said in an emotional news conference last night in Gaza City. ''This is not true."

Israel's Cabinet voted unanimously earlier yesterday to end its military rule over the Gaza Strip, which began when Israel captured the territory from Egypt in the 1967 Mideast war.

Dahlan and other Palestinian officials said Israel was wrong to say that its occupation of the strip was ending, because it still controls land, sea, and air access to the strip.

But Dahlan, one of the most powerful figures in the Palestinian Authority, the governing body for Palestinians, conceded that Israel's departure from the occupied territory was a historic moment.

Whether Palestinian security can keep order after the handover is a matter of concern; rival security forces and militant groups have clashed frequently, and militant factions have vowed to grab assets in the settlelments if the Authority does not share the benefits.

''I don't deny that there is a state of chaos," Dahlan said, noting that Israeli attacks on security forces during the recent intifada further weakened them. ''But after the withdrawal we are going to see substantial changes that will guarantee human rights, the rights of the Authority and the opposition, and the safety of the Palestinian citizen."

Farhana al-Louh, who gave her age as "60 or 70," said she already feels safer, sitting under a grape arbor at her house on the edge of what was once the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom.

Until the Israeli pullout, they were under curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day. Frequently, Israeli soldiers would take over their house on security sweeps, making the women sit on the ground outside and taking the men away for security checks.

Once she watched a Palestinian with a bulldozer approach the settlement, contemplating an attack.

''I told him, 'God will not accept this. There are 30 children in the house. If you do it [the attack], they will kill us.' "

The man took the bulldozer away.

Israeli troops demolished the wall around the family's house and several extra rooms, fearing attackers could hide there. Ra'afat, Farhana's son, blames powerful Palestinians.

''The resistance shoots at the Israelis and they punish us," he said. ''But neither the Authority nor the resistance have given us a sack of flour."

From his rooftop you can see just an empty lot where dozens of houses stood until last month. But he's sure some valuable treasures must be hidden there somewhere.

''I'm really happy -- the dogs, the settlers, have left," he said. ''I'll be the first to go there."