That is a huge distortion. The Israeli government under Ariel Sharon decided to evacuate all Israeli presence from the Gaza Strip in 2005, handing farms and other facilities intact, and giving full control to the Palestinian Authority, as an act of peaceful disengagement.

I remember that "free fire zone" thought flashed through my mind the moment the news announced the Israelis were abandoning the settlements in Gaza. I had to refresh my memory about what had been going on.

The Second Intifada had extended from 2000, to the Sharm El Sheikh Summit in February 2005. The Israelis destroyed the airport in Gaza in January 2002.

Sharon proposed the withdrawal from Gaza in 2003, during the Intifada. The plan was approved by the Knesset in June 2004, with a deadline of August 15, 2005.

The Gaza Strip disengagement occurred seven months after the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit, which ended the Second Intifada. As part of this process, four Israeli settlements in the West Bank were dismantled as well. Israeli officials, historians, and legal analysts cited several motives behind the country's decision to withdraw from the territory, with the two most significant factors being: the unsustainable cost of persistent and intensive fighting with Hamas and other Palestinian militant organizations; and demographic concerns rooted in the discrepancy between the Israeli birth rate and the Palestinian birth rate, as the latter greatly outpaced the former. According to Sharon, the disengagement plan was aimed at addressing Israel's long-term security challenges by shifting the country's resources to focus on strengthening the areas that "will constitute an inseparable part of the State of Israel in any future agreement" with the Palestinians.

en.wikipedia.org - Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip

So the withdrawal plan was in place before the Sharm el-Sheikh summit in Feb 2005. Withdrawal from Gaza was implemented per the schedule of the 2003 plan. The 2003 plan had, as it's basis, the security challenges of having Israelis living in Gaza. Take that as you wish: the Israeli settlements were indefensible, or a desire to make Gaza a free fire zone.

Steve