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In Gaza, Defiance Tempered by Tears
A Jewish settler weeps on the shoulder of an Israeli policeman as troops evacuate Neve Dekalim, a settlement in the southern Gaza Strip.
(By Oded Balilty -- Associated Press)
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The number of soldiers multiplied, and they prepared to enter. As they gathered, a woman in an orange anti-disengagement T-shirt set a plastic chair on the doorstep and began reading psalms to herself. After a few minutes, the soldiers retreated to the curb.
In the street, two young men sprinted toward the still-empty bus parked outside and pelted the windshield with a dozen eggs. Several soldiers chased them down. After grabbing one boy by the arm and putting him on the bus, a soldier turned away in anger, his face covered with spit.
"It's very difficult for all of us, on both sides," said Capt. Rachel Zinger, 24, whose squad of female soldiers was deployed to doorsteps throughout the morning. "But we're trying our best."
Down the street, the Ben-Simon family -- four young children and a mother struggling with a newborn -- posed for a final group picture on the lawn in front of their house. A stroller blocked the path to the door where soldiers milled around waiting for the family to emerge.
When it did, the mother kneeled to the ground and kissed it. Then she boarded the bus. "Look how many soldiers it took to remove our family of four children," she said.
The operation picked up pace just before noon, and soldiers began kicking down doors closed to them only hours before.
A dozen soldiers flattened the door of house No. 285, and Zinger's squad helped evacuate a half-dozen teenage girls inside. Soldiers were forced to carry them out spread-eagle. One of them sang, "God will save us, God will save us," as she was placed on a bus. She opened a tinted window and continued chanting as a group of sobbing girls filed onto the bus. They carried backpacks. One wore fluffy slippers resembling teddy bears.
"Just put your head down, cry, then get up," one officer counseled a female soldier as she wept quietly on sidewalk. The officer, who declined to give his name, poured cool water over her head and neck, and another female soldier crouched down to embrace her.
Maj. David Kelner, whiskered and ragged, worked with his platoon clearing houses well into the evening. It was quiet, patient work, like nothing he'd ever done. No guns or bombs, but unusual things, he said, as he watched two of his men carry a car seat with an infant strapped inside.
"The day was very tough," said Kelner, 39. "We say reality is always more than anything you imagine it might be. But today was about how I'd imagined."
