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Gaza pullout opponents rally


Tel Aviv / AFP
08/12/2005

Tens of thousands of opponents of next week's Gaza Strip pullout staged a mass rally on Thursday, while US President George W. Bush hailed the withdrawal from the Palestinian territory as "good for Israel ".

Speaking to the mass crowd in Tel Aviv, hardline settler leaders delivered instructions on how to try to disrupt the uprooting of all 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza , to begin on August 17.

"We will be physically there at the Kissufim crossing (between the Gaza settlements and Israel ) from Monday and we will oppose the withdrawal without violence," Bentzi Liberman, leader of the main settlers lobby, told the crowd.
"Nothing is over. We must go to the south, on the roads. God will hear us," proclaimed Ygal Kamineski, rabbi of Gush Katif, the main Jewish settlement bloc in southern Gaza.

Chief settlers' organisation Yesha said 250,000 people crowded into the landmark Rabin Square in the hea rt of Israel 's commercial capital, but reporters put turnout far lower.

The square was awash with orange, strung up with orange flags and balloons in the colour that has come to symbolise the campaign against disengagement.
Tens of thousands of men, women, families and children, packed into the square to listen to the rallying cries from settler leaders.

Amid the chorus of opposition, Bush welcomed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to leave Gaza as "one that is going to be good for Israel ," in an interview broadcast on Israel 's Channel One network.