Original subtitles

They told me, we support you.

And I said to them, I support you.

Because you, those who live here, you are the front and

also the back of the Jewish people.

Israel's borders are a work in progress.

They have changed seven times in its history.

In 2005, Israel's borders changed once again.

In an unprecedented decision, Israel dismantled four settlements in the West

Bank and ceded control of the entire Gaza Strip to the Palestinians.

Unlike previous border shuffling, This withdrawal did not stem from a war or

political negotiations.

It was a unilateral decision that Israel hoped would lead to peace.

This plan would be called the disengagement.

Welcome to Gush Katif, a block of land containing most of the 21 Jewish

settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Inside Gush Katif is Nevei DeKalim, meaning palm tree oasis.

It is the largest, and most populous Jewish settlement in Gaza, with 2 ,500

mostly religious residents.

We're getting ready for Shabbat right now.

So we're going to mix the peppers.

And here I find fish.

And then we're going to put on some nice mashed potatoes.

To get to Nevei DeKalim, Rachel would have to drive down this Israeli

-controlled highway.

Israeli tanks and watchtowers on the lookout for occasional sniper fire.

This highway was part of Israel's so -called Five Finger Plan for settling

Gaza Strip, dividing up the area for what Israel calls security measures.

Before the disengagement, just outside Gaza, sat 40 ,000 Israeli soldiers in a

specially constructed tent camp, preparing to carry out their orders to

the 9 ,000 Israeli residents of the Gaza Strip.

The orders were given by this man, Ariel Scheinerman, a young soldier in

Israel's 1948 War of Independence.

A year earlier, the UN partitioned what was known as Palestine into two states,

one for the Jews and the other for the Arabs, with Jerusalem as an

capital. Less than 24 hours after Israel declared independence, five Arab

nations, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Transjordan, simultaneously attacked

the fledgling state.

Scheinerman, now known as Ariel or Arik Sharon, had his platoon in the newly

formed Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, nearly wiped out, and he himself was

in the groin. But the IDF and Israel survived.

After the war, Jordan controlled the West Bank and Jerusalem, while Egypt

controlled a tiny sliver of land on the Mediterranean, known as the Gaza Strip.

Thousands of Arab refugees fled to Gaza after the war.

Egypt refused to absorb them.

Gaza became a staging ground for attacks against Israel.

In response, Arik Sharon created Israel's first ever commander unit, the

and in 1955 led the first of myriad counter -terror raids into the Gaza

He fought as a paratrooper in the 1956 Sinai campaign against Egypt.

He crafted the strategy for the Six -Day War of 1967.

Here, Israel took control of the entire Sinai and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

The Golan Heights from Syria.

and the West Bank from Jordan.

For the first time since 1948, Sharon and the Jews were allowed to visit their

holiest site, the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

The bulldozers then went to work.

It was Sharon's plan and initiative to clear the desert sands in the Gaza Strip

to establish Jewish settlements.

Sharon was on hand at the founding of the first Gaza settlement, Kfar de Rome

1970.

Sharon would earn himself the nickname, the bulldozer.

After receiving a shrapnel wound to the head in the 73 Yom Kippur War, Sharon

left the army for politics.

The party he and soon -to -be Prime Minister Menachem Begin founded, the

campaigned on a platform to rebuild the biblical homeland of the Jews on land

mostly populated by Arabs.

Shalom was embraced by a growing number of religious nationalists, thousands of

whom would move into the occupied or liberated territories.

I'm 64 and I'm a mom and a grandmother. I have nine

grandchildren and two on the way.

I came from Brooklyn originally.

I married my husband who was from Manhattan.

We came on Aliyah in 1968.

You see over here, we see a Qasem rocket.

I'd like to tell you something about this rocket.

You can see it's rather, it's not a very professional job, actually. It's a pipe

with a few fins, and when it blew up, in fact, it blew up close to my house over

here, no one was ever killed by a Qasem rocket.

The miracles of Gush Katif.

Gustav Tief was a renowned farming community.

Its greenhouses, here called hothouses, were famous for novel agricultural

technology optimizing farming in desert conditions.

The farms brought in $100 million a year in export to Europe alone.

Settlers were compensated by the government according to the value of

property and the size of their families.

Am I planting because of ideology?

Palm Beach.

Israeli tourists would frequent the Palm Beach Resort Hotel, which was closed

and abandoned in 1987 over security concerns.

It has since become a local surfer's haven.

I wish I'm going to surf.

The surfers enjoyed the best waves in Israel for what could be the last time.

Across the street from the entrance to Neve de Kalim and just south of Palm

Beach is the Muassi Arab neighborhood.

The Palestinians living there were boarded on all sides by settlements.

Following the second intifada, they could only leave the area with tightly

regulated Israeli permission.

You must have a special magnetic card that you live in al -Mawafi.

This family of brothers hadn't left the Mawafi area since 2001.

The mayor of Panunis is hopeful that the disengagement will bring an economic

windfall as Gush Katif will come under his governance.

Gaza's third largest city sits directly east of Gush Katif.

Several weeks before, begin to count the days and the hours and even the minutes

for this engagement.

And I think this is a big opportunity for us to improve our situation.

Many of Khan Yunus' 200 ,000 residents...

We're farmhands in the Israeli greenhouses.

We think that the Palestinian Authority now, they prepare itself to continue

management of the greenhouses inside the settlement.

So I don't think that they will lose their job.

And we think that after this engagement, a lot of job will be created in our

city.

Colonel Jamal Qaid is in charge of the Palestinian Authority, Southern Command.

It will be his job to deploy forces during and after the disengagement to

prevent attacks on Israelis from Gaza.

And this is the green line. This is the green line between us and the Israeli

border. After the disengagement, after the Israeli occupation, we'll be leaving

from here.

I feel that there is something new will be coming.

With 29 days to go to disengagement, nearly 70 ,000 orange -clad

gathered in a nearby town, Niti Vot.

Anti -disengagement protesters adopted the color orange, the color of the Gush

Katif Regional Council flag.

From here, they plan to trek the over 30 kilometers to Gush Katif in a

solidarity march.

However, police and IDF forces declared Gaza a closed military zone, allowing

only residents, journalists and security forces to enter.

We're going to march, we're going to march through the Gush Katif in order to

break the ghetto.

We are going to protect the democracy of Israel and we are going to do it in

democratic ways, non -violent ways, in order to make it happen.

The Orange was determined, planning to march five kilometers through the summer

night to the town of Far Maimon, gather there, then march another 15 kilometers

to Gaza.

Far Maimon.

27 days to go to disengagement.

Tens of thousands of police and soldiers surround the town, barring anyone from

leaving towards Gush Katif.

These people believe in the greater land of Israel. They believe that evacuating

9 ,000 settlers and 21 settlements from Gush Katif is the beginning of the end

of their dream of the messianic stream of Zionism. Over 5 ,000 journalists were

accredited to cover the disengagement.

That's more than half of the 9 ,000 settlers who live there.

TV, radio, print, and online journalists from around the world focus global

attention on the event.

This is what they're calling their zero hour or last stand protest march.

They're banking all their money that this thing is going to go with and

going to be able to stop the disengagement.

The police is totally apolitical.

We've been given a mission. The mission now is to keep this crowd under control,

not let them march to Boushkati.

The motion doesn't take part in it. A lot of what the settlers are trying to

is break down the morale. They go and they stand right in front of them and

say, refuse your orders. You're acting immorally. This is against democracy.

This is against Judaism. This is against Israel.

And they're battering it, battering and battering all day long.

Got it?

There's a strange camaraderie. This guy's handing out to soldiers, to

to settlers, people who are, yeah, popsicles.

I mean, there is a strange camaraderie here. I can't really see it devolving

into violence.

We all realize that we are all part of the same nation, and the day after the

disengagement, the day after this demonstration ends... we will still be

police that serve the people of the State of Israel, including the

demonstrators.

With 12 days to go, protesters had marched 30 kilometers in 24 hours from

to Ofakim.

Police and the IDF lined up in Ofakim to prevent them from getting any closer to

Gaza. This is the last point for them. They are not going to go from here. And

if you know this way, it's to Bushkati.

It's incredible the control that the leaders have over them, and that's why

haven't seen stone -throwing, you haven't seen scuffles. It's been

peaceful.

We try

to make sure that there will be not a lot of demonstration near Gush Katil.

of police cavalrymen, bridgehead police.

They have stopped about 10 ,000 protesters from marching that way, which

towards the Gush Kativ settlement block.

There is no any winners and no any losers in this event, and they are not

enemy. They are not criminals, these people, as long as they obey the law.

some staged protests in front of soldiers, others went around the line to

through fields and farmlands.

Dozens were arrested on the journey, while hundreds infiltrated Gaza and

Gush Katif.

They're going to do everything they can to save those lands, including marching

every single night, coming out here, bringing sleeping bags, bringing food,

camping out here in the middle of a highway in an effort to, what they see,

reach their brethren.

And if they don't reach them, at least they can say they tried.

Nationwide, public support for the disengagement hovered between 50 to 60

percent leading up to the pullout.

On the beach in Tel Aviv, disengagement supporters were easy to find.

We'll be really happy.

I'm for it. I'm for this engagement.

I think it's necessary to move forward and to create some peaceful coexistence.

We really want to believe there's going to be a quiet and there's going to be a

peace and no more bombs, no more war.

Supporters of the pullout adopted blue and white, invoking the colors of the

Israeli flag.

This is a symbol to say that we want them to leave Gaza.

And you can see more and more people having this on the car.

This is a symbol of the state of Israel.

I think it's a good thing for Israel.

I think it will help. I don't think we should be in Gaza. I don't think we

should occupy one and a half million people just for the 8 ,000 that live

And I'm happy we're getting out.

One country, as you can see.

We don't need to be there. It's not our territory.

We need the support of other countries.

In

Israel's

capital, Jerusalem, the disengagement was on everyone's mind.

I think that the situation now, it can't get any worse. So if this doesn't work,

then you're going to be pro -giving more?

Exactly, that's my point.

More and more and more until you have nothing?

What is that? Because I believe that occupying territories and people that

not Jewish people, we are Jewish people and they're Arab people, okay? And we

are occupying them. And I think that they have a right for their own country,

for their own rights.

and for their own freedom.

Sitting less than one kilometer outside Gaza is Kibbutz Nachal Oz.

Despite being on constant terror alert, this community's security chief favored

Israel's withdrawal.

Here is a place I like, you know, quiet, and you hear the wind blow the

leaves and the birds.

This is a gas trip from Yad Mordechai to the

sea. So many people died there, you know, only to say, this is us, it

belongs to us.

I don't think that Sharon is stupid, so stupid to leave all this part that he

was one of the major...

people that he decided that we are going to settle there.

Israel doesn't really need Gaza.

I don't know a lot of Israeli citizens that want to live in Gaza.

We have to do it to show the world that we can do some hard stuff.

But I don't trust the other side.

Look, we have to find our place in the Middle East.

So we try.

I hope maybe this time we'll get it.

We have had 8 ,000 people among a million and a half Arabs. I never

a moment that 8 ,000 people have a future in Gaza.

Now that we have to decide about shaping our future borders, then let's keep the

best and leave the rest.

Keep what we need.

A Jewish state is not a religious definition.

A Jewish state is a demographic definition, namely the one that have the

majority make it either Jewish or Arab.

How do we ensure that we will have a Jewish majority in the land of Israel?

That's the critical strategic issue. That was the strategic issue by the

founding fathers of Zionism.

And I thought better do it unilaterally than not do it at all.

Because the alternative was not to do.

The Gaza Strip is home to more than one and a half million.

mostly Muslim Arab residents.

In Arab Gaza, unemployment hovers between 60 to 70 percent.

Fifty percent live below the poverty line.

Its seaport, airport, and border have been controlled and closed by Israel,

preventing international trade and travel.

With a week to go, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas delivers a

speech on the prospects of the disengagement.

Considered a moderate, he, along with Yasser Arafat, founded the Fatah

organization, a secular movement aimed at the liberation of Palestine.

Mahmoud Abbas is hopeful that Israel's withdrawal will not embolden extremist

elements.

Here at the Palestinian

Authority's Security Forces Headquarters.

These are some of the soldiers Abbas is counting on to police the streets of

Gaza after Israel withdraws.

Both Israelis and Palestinians question whether the security forces could do the

job.

The settlers of Gush Katib have buried their dead here.

Soon, the 48 graves will be exhumed and moved into Israel proper.

Today, their memorial service mourning the dead for the last time in Gaza.

The first context in which we read about this area in

the land of Israel is in Genesis chapter 20.

when the Torah Pentateuch tells us, and Abraham journeyed from there toward the

Negev and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur and sojourned in Gerar.

This area is Gerar.

settled.

This is where they develop their ideology, their way of life.

Followed afterward, we are told, is despite the adverse circumstances of a

famine, Isaac was able to achieve what amounts to a veritable agricultural

miracle here in Graar.

In Netzerim, in the middle of Gaza, Families pour in to plant next season's

crops just 48 hours before the pullout.

They believe that in a few short months, they'll harvest these crops because

they say a miracle is coming.

We're planting cherry tomatoes in the high house of Netarim. In time,

three months, we'll pick them.

Our commitment to the land didn't change because Ariksha once said it's changed.

So we're doing our commitment to the land. We're planting, we're building,

continuing our regular life.

We're not prophets.

We don't know what we'll be.

But we believe that God is with us and we want to stay in Eretz Yisrael.

The nation of Israel being here is in order to...

fully actualize the vision of the prophets as expressed by Isaiah to be a

unto the nation, to develop the ideal state that can serve as a model for the

entire world.

The night before disengagement coincided with the Jewish holiday of Tisha B 'Av,

a day of fasting known as the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.

Tisha B 'Av, the ninth day of our month of Av, when all evil decrees have taken

place to the Jewish people.

Two temples were destroyed, expulsion from Spain, and now the expulsion just

on the ninth day of Av. We pray that everyone will help us in saving these

from destruction.

If God forbid that destruction takes place.

First, we're waiting for miracles to happen.

My husband and I have not signed away our home.

Many residents of Neve DeKalim had seen all this before as former residents of

Yamit, once a Jewish settlement in the Sinai Peninsula.

1982.

Residents were carried out against their will when Yamit was dismantled and

demolished after Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for peace.

While peace endured with Egypt, the conflict with the Palestinians

1987. The Intifada, or uprising, ignited. Young, angry Palestinians

against Israel's military presence in the West Bank and Gaza, spurring a wave

Palestinian nationalism.

1993.

Israel took its first step to ending the occupation.

Arafat, and then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, agreed that control of certain

Palestinian towns would be ceded to the newly created Palestinian Authority, or

PA.

Arafat's popularity surged.

2000, then Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with Arafat at Camp David for a final

status talk led by U .S. President Bill Clinton.

Barak offered the Palestinians a large percentage of the West Bank and 100 % of

the Gaza Strip.

The deal rejected by Arafat.

Ariel Sharon, furious at Barak's concessions, went on the campaign trail.

First stop, with hundreds of security guards by his side, the Temple Mount,

holiest site for Jews, and just above it, the Al -Aqsa Mosque, the third

site for Muslims.

Riots erupted. The second intifada was underway.

Palestinian suicide bombers struck buses in Jerusalem.

Discos in Tel Aviv.

Restaurants in Haifa.

And this Passover holiday dinner in Netanya.

In three years of fighting, more than 900 Israelis and over 2 ,500

are killed, with thousands more wounded on both sides.

In response, Israel started building the security barrier, which Israel

estimates reduced terrorism by 95%.

Palestinians called the wall an illegal land grab and a human rights violation.

The settlements in Gaza were hit constantly.

The attacks didn't stop Sharon from campaigning in Gush Katif in 2001, just

before the election.

Sharon's hardline stance catapulted him to the top of the Likud party.

Thanks to the support of the settlement movement, Sharon was elected Prime

Minister for the first time in 2001.

and re -elected in 2003.

He had an image of someone that would never retreat, that would never pull

that he is the founding father of the settlement movement. He won't give up

settlement. I voted for Ariel Sharon because he promised the people of Israel

security and sanctity of the land.

Less than a year later, in a stunning political about -face, Sharon announced

plan to evacuate all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the West

the very settlements he helped build.

If the weapons and weapons will be collected, if a new Palestinian

will be established, democratic and free from terror, if the occupation will be

stopped, the Israeli government will be in our leadership, in the leadership of

the Nikud, ready to fill a part and to allow the establishment of an

Palestinian state.

on the part of the Jewish communities.

We will separate them politically and physically

until they change their ways.

My plan, the separation plan, is the best security

plan.

The whole history of the state of Israel is based on critical, historical,

unilateral steps.

The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 was a unilateral step.

I'm the prime minister, he said.

I make the decision.

I was very glad that the right that was headed by Eric Sharon made a major

change, established a precedent of dismantling settlements.

It soon became apparent to me, as the weeks and months passed, that nothing

going to change the decision, the impending decision.

And so when the decision was actually made in the government, I felt I could

longer... influence it. There was no chance of influencing it. I myself was

going to be a party in good conscience to something I fundamentally disagreed

with, I thought would bring terror and not peace closer. And that's when I

resigned from the government.

Democracy?

What has happened in this country?

On the eve of this engagement, in the northern West Bank, a group of far

rabbis invoked a Kabbalistic death curse on Sharon called Polsa de Nura, Aramaic

for lashes of fire.

They wouldn't stop the disengagement.

Positively, it was the most sensitive mission in which we didn't have to deal

with enemies, we had to deal with our brothers.

Everyone understood that it's a very unique mission and it has psychological

aspects.

We understood that if we want to prevent violence,

we have to be very strong.

When the residents will see the black suits, the organized force,

The well -organized force usually breaks the spirit of the protesters before the

interactions, before the violent interactions.

The

one

they meet is the soldier. They don't meet the prime minister, they meet the

soldier. So we knew that the interaction would be, let's say, explosive.

The Jewish army, after 2 ,000 years, is supposed to protect Jews. When was the

last time there were 40 ,000 soldiers and police amassed against the Arabs?

It will be okay.

We knew that our forces are very, very prepared.

This is a 50 -50 plan, America and Israel working together. And we're here

Americans saying we oppose this. The Jewish people throughout the entire

of Israel have such a burning love for the land that they're willing to risk

their lives, even to the point of dying, being terribly injured, in order to

stay here. The land is that important to them. There's Jews living here, and

that makes it just as important as Jerusalem.

There is no difference.

Hashem said, In thy hands shall be married. For as a young man marrieth a

virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee.

Today,

we saw the beginning of the attempted, attempted

evacuation of the people of Pushpitsi.

What is he saying? You got blown away and he's got a nerve.

in this act, as it is the crucial recognition that we have to make.

Good afternoon.

Okay.

to the army, to the Israeli army.

That means that I have to do whatever the Israeli army tells me to do.

We've had a lot of soldiers that have had a very, very difficult time standing

against some of these young girls as they're, you know, telling you to your

face, you know, why are you doing this to me? We're not fighting a war here.

We don't have enemies in front of us. It's our brothers.

It's Israelis just like us.

Honestly, I don't know what I would do if I was in their position.

It's not easy.

To be in their position is 10.

Stand against the residents.

And we'll be watching them taking out a Torah around the synagogue and then

bringing the crescent of

Hamas.

Oh.

. . . . .

The State of Israel is corrupt.

Corrupt to the State of Israel. This is his army.

Beware.

We can all pray, do good things, build, to spread this

place. This is peace.

This is peace. I will live well. I have a friend who will not expel me from my

home. This is not peace.

Tell me what's on your mind. I want to think about it. I want to think

about

it.

The army has been coming around from home to home, throwing people out of

homes. People are realizing that they're going to be thrown out of their homes

in order to make way for the very people that have been murdering them for 30

years. I mean, how can you live with such an injustice?

Regardless of how practical anyone may think this is, it's so unjust.

I see a bunch of them.

We are in a very good settlement, and we are free without any Jewish in our

land, and we will fight in Ramallah and Jerusalem to put our flag on Jerusalem.

Islamic Jihad was the first faction to organize parades through the former

settlements.

Both Israel and the PA had agreed months before that Israel would demolish the

settlement.

All homes would be destroyed, the neighborhoods flattened, but public

would be left standing.

Israel says it wanted to prevent terror cells from acquiring infrastructure.

The PA says it agreed in order to prevent land grabs and chaos.

The synagogues were left intact.

Israel put up signs in English and Arabic saying, Holy Place, and asked the

to guard them from being destroyed.

Kids forage for scrap metal that they could sell.

Palm Beach, leveled.

No surfers in sight.

Instead, Palestinians living in nearby Han Yunis could for the first time in 38

years reach the beach.

Up the street on the road to Neve Dikalim, Muassi, out to greet new

They could finally reach other parts of Gaza.

This land is once again a chance, or a possibility, and we have to work as soon

as possible to develop this area and have all the benefits of it for our

And I think this is really maybe the day of the born of Russia.

Now I think it is a simple life and a simple life without any soldiers.

The Saperstein Residence.

Demolished.

The disengagement cost Israel almost $1 billion.

It was a historic 180 -degree turn in Israel's security strategy.

Sharon, the architect of the Gaza settlement, had abandoned them. He

unilateral step was a necessary sacrifice to move the peace process

Would he be proven right?

The mission is completed.

An era has ended.

From this moment on, the responsibility for all that takes place in Gaza

Strip lays on the Palestinians.

As Israel lowered its last flag in Gaza, another question remains.

Would a unified Palestinian flag be raised in its place, or would factions

compete with each other for power?

A day after the disengagement, Gaza's top cleric held a congratulatory Friday

prayer service in Mahmoud Abbas's honor.

Thank you very much.

Sheikh Abu Tir is a top Hamas official from a village near Jerusalem.

The soon -to -be candidate had served 26 years in Israeli prisons across four

terms on charges of weapon smuggling and terrorist activities.

One week after the pullout, Hamas organized this massive rally in Gaza's

refugee camp to announce what it saw as its victory over Israel.

Propaganda there depicted bloodied Israeli settlers and soldiers fleeing

settlements, crushed under the feet of a Hamas militant.

The international community applauded Sharon, seeing the disengagement as

advancing the peace process.

Sharon addressing the UN General Assembly.

The price will improve.

While the world backed his move, His own party, which he helped found, did not.

Sharon was to deliver a speech at the next Likud Central Committee meeting.

one.

His microphone cut out.

Organizers replaced it.

Take two.

Again it cut out.

Sharon would never deliver the speech.

Sharon walked away and started an entirely new party, Kadima, meaning

forward.

January 5th. The Prime Minister is rushed to Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital

suffering a major stroke.

Following a series of life -threatening operations, he fell into a coma.

Kadima had to go forward without him.

January 26, Palestinian election.

Israel had pressed the U .S. and Europe to delay the election and or ban Hamas,

considered internationally a terrorist organization.

But there they were on the ballot.

The voting process was transparent and democratic, voters choosing between the

longstanding Fatah power base, accused by Hamas of mismanagement and vast

corruption, and a surging Hamas.

Campaigning to reform the government and continue, quote, the resistance against

Israel, Hamas won by a landslide, taking nearly 60 % of the seats. It promised

to stick to its charter's principles of not recognizing Israel as a legitimate

state, vowing its destruction, and supporting suicide attacks.

This is Sheikh Abu Tir being sworn in and shaking hands with the outgoing

finance minister, Mohamed Dahlan.

from handshakes to fist fights.

The day after results came in, clashes broke out between Hamas voters and Fatah

backers here at the Palestinian Legislative Council building in

Hamas loyalists replaced the Palestinian flag with their own.

Fatah supporters respond.

A sign of things to come.

I believe that we will lose a lot of our power, but I don't believe that Hamas

will have a majority in the PLC.

The terrorists got the credit. Why did Israel leave?

It fled the terror. Who conducted the terror? Hamas. Who would get the

credit? Hamas. Who got it?

Hamas. It seems in the Arab world that resistance is Hamas and negotiation is

Fatah. Fatah lost not because...

People rejected their ideology, but people accused them of corruption, and

was the problem.

I will tell you, in my opinion, I think Hamas should be, from the beginning,

should be out of the government. Because I feel that the situation,

it is not suitable.

It is not able to be Hamas in the government.

Meanwhile, on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank, old loyalties die hard.

Despite the Hamas victory in the election, Fatah refused to disarm their

security forces.

The situation spiraled into chaos.

March 20th, Hamas gunmen firing on Fatah militiamen.

The reaction of Hamas that they feel that they can't do everything now. They

kill, they can assassinate some people without any court.

They take the law to their hand.

April 1st, a Fatah funeral procession parades down Ramallah Street.

Shots from now. Kids caught in the crossfire. The pallbearers take cover.

April 22nd. 300 young Fatah backers raid the Palestinian legislature building in

Gaza City.

They destroy newly occupied Hamas offices, demanding civil servants get

The next day, outside the Ministry of Health, Hamas gunmen fire on Fatah

fighters after they storm the building.

A man down.

Police later arrested.

They ate communists.

Rival gunmen fired at each other leaving three dead.

Kids take cover.

People going about their day find a safe corner.

Schools evacuate and kids rush home.

Hamas's military wing took an active role in patrolling Gaza's streets,

deploying their own fighters at busy intersections, acting as a new police

force, provoking PA security forces, mostly composed of Fatah loyalists. By

year's end, more than 200 Gazans would be killed due to factional violence.

Some clashes here, some clashes there.

All the time we are doing our best to do it.

Hamas, in their side, they know that they failed.

But they are looking for any excuse to leave the

government.

The cycle of violence raged on.

In revenge for Hamas militants firing a rocket -propelled grenade that killed

two PA soldiers, Fatah militants kidnapped and killed this Hamas

paraded to his burial.

Chants at his funeral are directed not at Israelis, but rival Palestinians.

Gaza militants continued to wage war on Israel with an all -too -familiar

weapon.

I think that the effect of the Qassam missile is very minimal.

Drawing a kid, raising a kid on fears and traumas.

Statistically, there were more rockets after the disengagement plan.

That's for sure. We counted.

We never had 60 rockets a day before the disengagement.

The rockets come in half a mile from here. This is a place neighboring Gaza

called Beit Hanun, Beit Lahiya, and a place called Jibaliyah.

Those three places, the major places they're shooting from.

We have here a number of syringes, when a number of types, according to their

numbers, we see a syringe, which is a syringe of 115 millimeters, 60

millimeters, and 90 millimeters, when, again, each one has the damage that

it causes in terms of the amount of toxic material that it contains.

All the Jews will return in repentance.

The seats are protected, the students lie down, and that's it.

It's not easy.

It's not easy to live in this kind of situation that any second it can be hit

a rocket.

So the red dawn is the warning system to tell people to get to cover.

You know, it gets people 10 seconds or so to take cover anywhere they can.

And I guess, you know, we did it, and people around here did the same. No one

was hurt.

A house used to sit on this now empty lot.

It's the same story as many other families in Gaza, where a family member

suspected militant, others innocent victims.

One night in August, they got a call from the Israeli army, seven minutes

the airstrike.

The strike leveled the home and killed his father and brother,

now honored as martyrs.

But it would be a long road before the violence on both sides died down.

More houses were leveled.

Infrastructure, like this bridge, was targeted.

Power outages continued, even at hospitals.

And all the while, the Hamas -led parliament couldn't pay government

not even teachers.

I didn't receive my salary since seven months.

Yes, before the disengagement we were very happy and looking for a happy

for our life.

Everything is destroyed and no one go to his working, especially in farming.

I think one percent from our greenhouses are operating now.

Before the disengagement, we think that the disengagement will make a big change

in Khan Yun's condition. And really, nowadays, we did not feel that there is

big change.

The mayor wasn't as concerned with possible civil war as he was with what

If we are talking about rehousing a project, if we are talking about

trade, financial situation, I think it go worse and worse.

Nowadays we are talking about a very high ratio of unemployment, a very high

ratio of poverty people who are living under poverty line.

So nothing good is happening at all?

No, near, near.

What in the end did the disengagement produce?

Many settlers, including the Sapersteins, were relocated to

housing communities like this one in Yitzhan, between Gaza and Tel Aviv.

This is our caraville over here. We're just one of many, many others.

In fact, it's row after row after row of the same yellow house with the red

roof.

We immediately put in a garden.

You can come on in.

Hi, this is the inside of our house.

It's a small house. It's smaller than the one we had, but we're grateful that

have a little house to live in. Friend's container is over here, the neighbor

next door. She had a huge...

three -story house, and so most of her stuff is in the container.

Who would ever have suspected that at the age of 65,

I would be a refugee in Israel?

Israel was supposed to be the place of refuge.

We were not supposed to be refugees.

Not in Israel.

Prime Minister Olmert announced that further unilateral disengagement is no

longer a feasible option for Israel.

If this strategy is off the table, what next?

Like all over the world, economic coordination and political separation.

We think that if we give them better economic conditions,

housing, medical care.

Why? They'll be perfectly happy to have peace.

There's been a sea change of opinion in Israel in the wake of the terror that

followed the unilateral withdrawals. The promise of peace did not materialize.

In fact, what we got was more terror from improved positions of the

For the Arab, the existence of a state of Israel, a Jewish state, here,

is something that they cannot tolerate.

They cannot have peace.

We need to return back to peace negotiations to solve the problem which

faced both of us, the Israeli and the Palestinian people.

So the equation should be the exact reverse.

You should bring down the extremists. You should weaken them, ultimately

or help induce a regime change.

And in order to allow the more moderate forces to rise, and with them, of

course, one can conduct political negotiations.

They want to have this balance.

They want to share this balance, not to bring Hamas so strong, not to bring Abu

Mazen so weak.

It's good to be no beast leadership with power, no

resistant leadership with power.

It's good to have this balance between these forces.

We're good for this, unfortunately.

I prefer there would be a night for peace instead of divided between a group

that supports peace and a group that wants to prevent peace. With an enemy

is committed to your destruction, you shouldn't give them any leeway.

They have to look for a solution. We are no longer in charge of it. They have to

decide which way to go.

If they'll continue to fight, we shall react. We don't have a choice.

I once joked, I said Israel has three deterrent elements. The Israeli Air

the Israeli Special Forces, and Shahar.

Shahar himself.

And they say, with this guy you don't mess, you know, because he's serious.

As of the editing of this film, the former soldier, the former prime

the creator and destroyer of the Gaza settlements.

The bulldozer, Ariel Sharon, remains in a coma.

What strategy would he have taken if still in office?

Would disengagement continue?

Would peace remain elusive?