Israel braces for massive rally

Emi Shakad, the security chief of the Gush Katif bloc of Jewish settlements, evacuates a child after his house was hit by a homemade rocket in Neve Dekalim settlement in Gush Katif bloc in the southern Gaza Strip, Sunday. (AP/Emilio Morenatti)

KFAR MAIMON, Israel (AP) - Police pledged Tuesday to stop more than 20,000 marchers, including teens with backpacks and parents pushing strollers, who were en route to the Gaza Strip to protest the summer's planned withdrawal - in the tensest showdown yet between protesters and the security forces.

After a first day of marching and a night spent in sleeping bags and tents, demonstrators wrapped in white shawls held morning prayers Tuesday at their roadside camp near the farming village of Kfar Maimon, about 16 kilometres east of the border with Gaza. Police were deployed nearby.
Police commissioner Moshe Karadi said he would not permit marchers to move any closer to Gaza, setting the stage for possible confrontations later in the day. Police have declared the march illegal, and on Monday tried to stop buses with protesters at their departure points to thin the crowd, to little avail.

Settler leader Pinchas Wallerstein said the protest could last many days.

"As long as this terrible decision stands (to withdraw from Gaza), there will be a constant presence to prevent this," he told Israel Army Radio. He said the protesters would try to keep moving toward Gaza.

"Wherever they stop us . . . we will stay," he said.

Marcher Avraham Ravi, 33, brought along his four children, ages one to eight. On Tuesday morning, Ravi, his wife and children were sitting under a tree in Kfar Maimon, getting ready for the second day of the march. "We walked all night. It wasn't easy with the kids," said Ravi, from the West Bank settlement of Tel Menashe. "But we tell them (the children) that this is to block those people who want to divide Israel."

The marchers want to reach the Jewish settlements in Gaza, and to participate in resisting the withdrawal, set to begin in mid-August. Police last week declared the Jewish settlements a closed military area, meaning only residents can come and go. Police also beefed up barricades at the Kissufim crossing, the gateway from Israel to the Gaza settlements, adding rolls of barbed wire and concrete blocks. >>>continued

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