Prayers and tears in Gaza's biggest settlement

Israeli police officers walk under the separation fence surrounding the Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim, in the Gush Katif settlement bloc, southern Gaza Strip. Picture / Reuters

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip - The haunting melody some Jews sang on their way to Nazi gas chambers echoed in a synagogue in Gaza's biggest Jewish settlement on Wednesday as weeping worshippers offered prayers against their evacuation.

"I believe, I believe," sang dozens of ultranationalist youngsters who managed to slip into the settlement of Neve Dekalim over the past several weeks.

Burying their faces in their hands, young women -- many dressed in orange, the colour adopted by opponents of the Gaza pullout -- wept over their prayer books on the synagogue's wooden benches.

The tune they chanted, known in Hebrew as "Ani Maamin", was an affirmation of faith sung by victims of the Nazi Holocaust in which six million Jews were systematically killed during World War 2.

It is now traditionally sung in Israel on mournful occasions.

Outside the house of worship, long lines of Israeli troops were beginning to evacuate settlers and their supporters who defied a midnight deadline to leave Neve Dekalim or be forcibly removed.

Black smoke from rubbish bins set alight by protesters rose into the clear summer sky.

"I don't want to, I don't want to," said a weeping young woman settler, carried out of a house by four women soldiers, each holding one of her limbs.

They hoisted her onto a bus that would take her out of the Gaza Strip, occupied territory to which many settlers stake a biblical claim, forever.

Itzik, commander of a 17-member military evacuation squad going house-to-house, was embraced by a bearded, religious settler outside the first home he approached.

"I know how traumatic this is for you. I am afraid you will end up in a mental asylum," the settler told the officer as the two men hugged and kissed.

Choking back tears, Itzik called settlers "salt of the earth" and his brothers but said he would carry on with his mission.

- REUTERS