Already last week, settlers began streaming to the site, and their numbers swelled in recent days while the security establishment did nothing to stop them.
The worst-case scenarios drawn up by the security establishment prior to the disengagement in Gush Katif were never realized there. There were heart-wrenching scenes, emotions ran high, but the evacuation passed quietly. Prior to the disengagement, main checkpoints into Gush Katif were shut down, and settlements sectioned off to prevent protesters from reaching the site.
The geographical location of Amona is different; it is an isolated hilltop that could easily have been surrounded and cut off days prior to the evacuation. The IDF, who is responsible for the area, should have set up checkpoints at the beginning of the week and monitored the traffic entering and exiting the area, thereby preventing the protesters from reaching the site. The thousands of security forces dispatched to Amona far exceeded the ratio of security forces deployed to evacuate Gush Katif settlements, and the violence was met in some cases with excessive force.
However, senior IDF officers declared that nothing could have prevented the violence, as the settlers had taken a clear-cut decision to resist harshly. The strategy of the Central Command was to disturb as little as possible the routine life of the thousands of settlers living in the immediate settlement bloc area in the Ofra region. "The main road serves thousands of settlers living in the region, and the decision not to set up checkpoints earlier was measured against the disturbances they would be forced to endure had such measures been taken," one officer said.
Settler leaders and Knesset members present throughout the forced evacuation failed in their mission to set examples to the scores of youth, many still hurting from the evacuation of Gush Katif. They had no control over the hundreds of ideology-fuelled teens that barricaded themselves on the rooftops, and they failed to prevent the ugly scenes of Jews raising their hands against other Jews from being broadcasted throughout the world.
Earlier in the week, thousands of police, border police and IDF soldiers underwent intensive preparations for the pending evacuation and the subsequent demolition of the nine illegal homes. Without a doubt, had they not been carefully trained and prepared for the mission, the casualties could have been far higher. No one was prepared for the fierce violence that erupted at the site - or for the blood curling images of Jewish youths, some wearing masks, throwing barrages of stones, rocks, large blocks, paint, and other substances at policemen attempting to evacuate them.
The police and border police who actively participated in the evacuation responded determinedly and fiercely to the unprecedented violence they were confronted with at the site. For the first time, policemen wielding batons fought through the crowds of Jewish protesters, beating them back, and mounted police directed their horses through the crowds in an attempt to disperse them.
While the security establishment deemed the evacuation a success, no one was prepared for the serious injuries a border policeman and Jewish youth incurred. "It is hard to fathom; their lives will never be the same," said one IDF officer. "When the decision was made by the settlers to resort to violence, no matter the numbers of people involved, it had to be dealt with quickly," another officer said. "The mission was carried out, the nine buildings will be demolished, but the price that was paid is something that will have to be reckoned with, by society and the entire security establishment," the officer said.
