Yearning for home in Gush Katif: ‘It’s the most human feeling; it’s not political’ - comment

Although my family and I still lived in Toronto at the time, the Disengagement was a major event in our lives. I and my husband, Meyer, were opposed to it for several reasons, and we became involved.

“I felt we needed to take a stand, and it was not possible in North America,” Meyer said. He flew to Israel a few weeks before the Disengagement was carried out and managed to reach Gush Katif, where he remained until the evacuation.

“I was privileged to be in Shirat Hayam prior to and during the expulsion. I witnessed the evacuation and burning of Neveh Dekalim. Some residents burned their own homes rather than leaving them to the enemy,” he said. “This all occurred right after Tisha B’Av – the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, when the First and Second Temples were destroyed, among other tragedies throughout Jewish history. Now, we have added another tragedy to the list: the exile from Gush Katif, although it was self-inflicted and in no way as severe as the others.”

Shirat Hayam (Song of the Sea) was where Al Mawasi is today, west of Khan Yunis.

“I was one of the many roofers. I was removed by force and loaded onto a bus,” Meyer said. “Now, in hindsight, we can all see what a disaster the Disengagement was, as we are currently paying the price for it. I hope we can learn from our mistakes and not repeat them.”

My daughter Sharona, then 19, was in Israel in the summer of 2005. Together with relatives who had made aliyah 25 years earlier, she joined more than 100,000 Israelis who participated in the Human Chain protest that extended from Gush Katif to the Western Wall. “The feeling of standing with my extended family, holding hands and saying, ‘No more!’ was profound. Words can’t describe the feeling of hope I had that the expulsion wouldn’t happen,” she said.

Settling in Gush Katif

MICHAEL AND SUSIE Shaul, natives of Toronto and New York, respectively, settled in Gush Katif in 1978. In discussion with In Jerusalem, Michael described the difficulties faced by the farmers who invested their lives and careers in Gush Katif; being forced to leave had changed their lives.

Michael Shaul, 52 at the time of the Disengagement, wasn’t surprised that they had to evacuate, noting that many residents had been in denial. Indeed, many recall that some families were telling their children that it wouldn’t happen, which made it even more difficult for many of the youth to adjust in the aftermath. A few men fell ill and died within a year, broken and depressed, while some teenagers, raised with strong Zionist values, required therapy due to a loss of faith and a feeling of betrayal by the country.

“I don’t like to rehash the past,” Shaul said. Although, like the rest of the community, he faced challenges – for instance, he was understandably not happy living in a caravan for two years after being evacuated – he accepted the situation from the beginning and moved on. “I like to live in the present,” he stressed.

In Gush Katif, “my main crop was cherry tomatoes. I introduced the first commercial variety to the country in 1986. I worked in the greenhouses. But after 27 years, at my age, I didn’t want to start a new business again. So, I went to workshops for a year to try to figure out what to do, and in the end I decided to continue working in agriculture. I got various jobs; all of them were short term, and then I did some agricultural advising.”

Shaul noted that the security situation had already become serious in the last few years before the Disengagement, beginning around the time of the Second Intifada. “On the road that led to my moshav, the main road, I drove 140 km. an hour because there were [Arab] snipers there, so if you drive fast enough, they’re not going to kill you,” he said, recalling the shooting death of Tali Hatuel, a pregnant woman from the Kfar Darom community, and her four young daughters. “And you know why? Because she didn’t drive 140.”

ANITA TUCKER is among those who long for a return to Gush Katif, where she was a farmer in the community of Netzer Hazani, north of present-day Khan Yunis, growing fruits and vegetables. 

She was known as “the celery lady,” and her family business produced thousands of heads annually for export. A leader who played a major role in keeping her community united after the expulsion and rebuilding Netzer Hazani in the Nahal Sorek region, between Ashkelon and Jerusalem, she was awarded the Moskowitz Prize for Zionism in 2010.

“We have countless pictures of the youth of Gush Katif, including my own grandchildren, who were born there but were evicted,” she told In Jerusalem. We still feel Gush Katif is home and yearn for our home. It is a yearning for home that comes deep from the heart. It’s the most human feeling; it’s not political. We lived in an area that had been totally empty – sand dunes, where Arabs around us said no one ever lived since our forefathers Abraham and Isaac. The area blossomed for us and our children and grandchildren, and we yearn and long for home. I lived there for 30 years. That’s a lifetime.

“I can take my great-grandchildren to visit Germany and Poland, where my ancestors lived, but I can’t take my younger grandchildren and great-grandchildren to visit what for us is home,” she lamented. “My children and grandchildren who lived there all yearn for home, and they would jump in line to live there again at a moment’s notice.”

This year, the Ariel Youth Movement’s summer camp will be “based on the theme of Gush Katif and will deal with the glorious Jewish history in Gaza from the past, the establishment of the settlements and their war on terror, the fight against the deportation plan, and looking to the future for the establishment of flourishing Jewish homes anew on the land of Gaza,” the Orthodox Zionist movement announced in June. “With God’s help, the camp next year will not only be a sign of returning to Gush Katif and the Gaza Strip but will actually take place there,” said Dvir Amior, secretary-general of Ariel.

“Many of those babies who were forced out of their homes are IDF soldiers today, fighting in Gaza. One of them is my son,” said Pazit Elfassy, adding that she and her husband, Yehiel, who now live in Sderot, are longing for the day when they could return to Gush Katif.

However, not all of those who were displaced by the Disengagement feel the same way, she said. Many have rebuilt their lives elsewhere and consider their new homes permanent.

At this point, the government has no plans to return to Gush Katif.■