Mr. Sharon is planning to visit the depopulated towns in coming weeks.
In a telephone interview with Haaretz newspaper from his Negev ranch, the prime minister said, "When I think of that morning, it was one of the most difficult days of my public life." When asked if he cried, Sharon replied: "When I arrived at the office the next day, I was asked if something happened."
Prime Minister Sharon told the Haaretz reporter that he was flooded with memories from Kfar Darom as a minister and as a commander of the famed 1950s counter-terrorism Unit 101. "It greatly pained me," he said. "With all of the terrible pain and distress, they evacuated themselves honorably."
Turning to the final scenes of the evacuation, of the people who had barricaded the Kfar Darom synagogue rooftop and taken up more active resistance, Sharon said, "But when I saw that evening the throwing of the bottles of poisonous or harmful substances, my mood changed and the pain turned to rage. The contrast was stark to the heroic stance and the honorable behavior of the residents. And what I saw there I could describe in one phrase: a criminal act. Simply a criminal act."
The prime minister described the youths who took over the synagogue roof as "people who were sent there to foil the evacuation, in order to act against a decision of the government and the Knesset."