News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Dror Vanunu, a former resident of Gush Katif who is active within the community of Katif expellees, said Sunday that a claim in left-wing paper Haaretz that each former Katif resident had received $500,000 was completely inaccurate.  Some individuals received hundreds of thousands of dollars for their homes, farms, and businesses combined, he said, but most had received far less, with many receiving less than $25,000--one twentieth of the sum quoted in Haaretz.

When asked why the Haaretz number was so far off, Vanunu explained that many sources confuse the total cost of the withdrawal with the cost of compensation to civilian residents of Gush Katif.  The cost of the withdrawal, including the cost of moving IDF bases out of Gaza and the cost of destroying the thousands of homes in Gush Katif, is as high as NIS 10 billion, he said, or several million shekels for each of the 10,000 Jews who lived in Gaza.