AN UGLY metal bridge on the road that bound Israel to its Jewish settlements and sliced Palestinian society in two was the most hated landmark in Gaza.

Yesterday it came down in the rush by the Israeli army to remove its watchtowers and the last of the infrastructure that protected the 21 recently demolished Jewish settlements. The last Israeli will leave Gaza by Monday or Tuesday, if all goes to plan and the fate of the settlers’ 26 synagogues is resolved.

Brigadier-General Avi Kochavi, the Israeli Gaza Division commander, will close the gate in a ceremony at Kissufim crossing and 38 years of Israeli presence will end. Arguments over Israel’s closure of the Rafah crossing into Egypt and the Palestinian Authority’s readiness to assume security control are certain to continue. But at the worst choke point in Gaza, Palestinians were at least looking forward to being able to travel the length of the coastal strip for the first time in years without being subject to the whims of Israeli soldiers.

During its military occupation, Israeli commanders built several strategic choke points to divide Gaza into slices and stop gunmen and ordinary Palestinians from moving between towns. In many of the bottlenecks there were back streets or fields, allowing enterprising Palestinians with robust axles to slip by.

But not at Abu Hooly. Here, when a traffic signal or disembodied megaphone squawk from the Israeli checkpoint ordered the north-south road closed, there was simply no way around. Cars, ambulances, lorries and donkey carts all waited for an hour, a day or a week on the dusty roadside verge.

Queues snaked back for kilometres, and a honking, foetid snarl of vehicles soured further when the drivers watched Israeli settler cars sailing past above their heads, travelling east-west without hindrance. So unpopular was Abu Hooly that it became a frequent target of attacks, forcing Israel to erect concrete slabs along the bridge to protect settlers from Palestinian snipers. Palestinians, in turn, accused Israeli soldiers of shooting without provocation at anything they deemed a threat.

As weary Gazans lay beneath their trucks and canvas awnings to escape the heat yesterday, their enforced wait was alleviated by an unaccustomed sense of anticipation. Before their eyes Israeli engineers began dismantling the source of their problems.

Abdul Qadr Abu Hooly, the 75-year-old mukhtar whose family gave the area its name, said: “My happiness defies description. My tears fell when I saw them start to go. That bridge is hated by all people.”

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