THE RA'AFAT STANDARD:

Palestinians assume control of Gaza Strip (Anne Barnard, Globe Staff | September 12, 2005, Boston Globe)

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. [...]

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."

Getting Gaza back was the easy part--now the leaders have to provide the flour.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 12, 2005 12:00 AM