By Wesam Abu Shamaleh | Middle East Monitor | Sept 15, 2022
The Palestinian resistance leadership is a unique example of sacrifice; dozens of military and political leaders have been martyred, as have many family members.
This week marked the 17th anniversary of the Israel army’s unilateral evacuation from Gaza in 2005, after a physical occupation lasting 38 years. Gaza was always a thorn in the side of the occupation state, prompting former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to say, “I wish I could wake up one day and find that Gaza has sunk into the sea.”
It also forced Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister in 2005, to retreat from his categorical refusal to withdraw from Gaza and his commitment to Jewish settlements in the enclave. He withdrew his soldiers, evacuated thousands of settlers and destroyed all of their settlements in Gaza, unconditionally. Twenty-one settlements covering around 35 per cent of the Gaza Strip were destroyed as the troops and settlers pulled out.
The liberation of Gaza was a turning point in Palestinian history. It was the first time that the Palestinian people had used resistance to expel Israelis from Palestinian land occupied since the Nakba in 1948, without an agreement or political costs.
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