Twenty years ago this week, driven by a sense of curiosity, Yossi Mekelberg, now a senior consulting fellow with Chatham House, talked his way into a restricted Gaza to see firsthand the impact of Israel’s decision to disengage from the enclave.

“I joined a bus carrying settlers to one of the cemeteries in Gaza on the day of Tisha B’av,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to a day of mourning and fasting when Jews commemorate the destruction of their First and Second Temples and other historical tragedies.

“They were in a trance. They were wailing,” he said of the added poignancy of the disengagement falling on a traditional day of mourning.

“It was almost transcendental for them, like an out-of-body experience.

‘From political wilderness to the heart of power’

The impact of former Israeli

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