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ISRAEL LEAVES GAZA; ARABS RUSH TO BURN SYNAGOGUES

"We are leaving Gaza with our heads raised," the Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, said at last night's withdrawal ceremony. A Kassam rocket was fired at Sderot this morning.
"38 years of presence in Gaza have come to an end, and we are now deploying anew," said Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz this morning.

Gen. Aviv Kokhavi, commander of the Gaza Formation, said at the conclusion of the retreat, "From now on, the responsibility for what goes on in Gaza is in the hands of the Palestinian Authority; the responsibility for Israeli citizens remains in the hands of the IDF."

Just this morning, a Kassam rocket was fired at the Negev border city of Sderot; no one was hurt. O.C. Southern Commander Dan Har'el said that he sees the PA as responsible for the shooting, that the shooting was a violation of the PA's commitment to maintain security, and that the IDF will respond.

Just hours after the Kassam fell, Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz said, "The Palestinians well understand that the State of Israel's policy regarding Kassams has now changed. There are no hard and fast rules regarding our response, but I strongly recommend that we act according to the toolbox that the IDF has."

In response to this announcement, the Katif.net website issued a warning to the residents of Sderot: "If the army has already started its declarations on the first day [of the retreat], your situation is not simple. Speaking from experience, we residents of Gush Katif well know the 'responses' of the army - such as when the terrorists fired 100 mortar shells on our towns and the IDF chose to respond with quiet. This in turn led to running away and the destruction of the Gush Katif communities."

During the midnight hours, mobs began swarming onto several formerly-Jewish areas even before the last Israeli soldiers had left. This, despite the fact that PA officials had said they would attempt to prevent entry of Arabs to the newly-abandoned areas, and declare them "closed military zones."

They mobs poured into N'vei Dekalim, Morag, Kfar Darom and Netzarim, setting out for the synagogues and trying to burn them down. The buildings are mainly concrete and therefore did not catch fire, but black smoke continues to darken the skies above the former Jewish towns.

The United States, which takes credit for disseminating the concepts of freedom of religion and respect for religious sites, condemned Israel for its decision not to destroy Jewish places of worship in Gaza.

"The decision places the Palestinian Authority in a no-win situation," said a State Department spokesman.

Former Gush Katif spokesman Eran Sternberg warned that the PA's enabling of the burning of the synagogues gives an "appearance of legitimacy for any Jew to strike out against Moslem holy sites, including the [mosques on the] Temple Mount."

Ynet - arguably Israel's most widely-read internet Hebrew news site - provided its angle of the events in Gaza by its choice of links in its main Gaza articles today. In a list of four links in one of its articles on the Gaza retreat, two of them were these:
* An exlusive interview with the father of Muhammed al-Dura, killed in October 2000. At the time, the PA disseminated footage purporting to prove that he was killed by Israeli crossfire, when in fact it was later shown almost conclusively that the event was staged and that the boy was out of the line of IDF fire. "I can't forget that day," his father is quoted as saying.
* Another exclusive interview with the mother of the last soldier killed in Gaza.