The expelled families of Gush Katif continue to suffer the ups and downs of the bureaucratic process of building them permanent homes in place of the ones the government destroyed in the summer of 2005.
The families of Netzer Hazani were given reason for hope, while those of Atzmonah-Shomeriya and Shirat Hayam scored a minus.
Netzer Hazani and Yesodot
Following a recent government decision to build a permanent community for Netzer Hazani, the local planning committee submitted a proposal at the end of last week to expand Moshav Yesodot for that purpose.
Some 50 families from Netzer Hazani, the oldest Gush Katif community, are currently living in temporary quarters in Ein Tzurim, east of Ashkelon. Their new community has now been designated for Yesodot, some ten miles to the northeast - in a bloc of religious communities that have opened their doors to the Gush Katif expellees.
Just past Yesodot is Yad Binyamin, where hundreds of Gush Katif families are living, and where many of them are ultimately to build their permanent homes. And to the west of Yad Binyamin is Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim, where the expelled families of Ganei Tal lived temporarily and to where they are scheduled to return.
In between Yad Binyamin and Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim is Beit Chilkiyah, a moshav populated by Hassidic families.
Anita Tucker is a founding member of Netzer Hazani whose celery farm there was one of the many casualties of the Disengagement in 2005. Arutz-7 asked if she is heartened by what seems to be progress towards rebuilding her destroyed town. "There are two fronts," she said. "The local plans are being approved at a good rate, and that's positive. But we need to sign a contract between us, Yesodot and the government - and the government is not yet providing the right terms for either us or for Yesodot."
Anita explained that the government must pay Yesodot for the land, and pay the contractors to build public buildings and infrastructures at a level befitting a 30-year-old community such as Netzer Hazani.
"For instance," she said, "each of us paid a hefty sum to build our synagogue, as Jews all over the world do. Should we now have to start all over from scratch?" Similarly with other public buildings, such as cultural centers, a mikvah, a shopping center - the residents say that these buildings were built over the course of years, and it would be unfair for them to have to wait a similar number of years for them to be rebuilt.
The plan is for the government to grant a dunam of land [1000 square meters, nearly a quarter of an acre] to each family, in exchange for the 1.5 dunams they each had in Netzer Hazani. "We agreed to this compromise," Tucker said.
Each family will have to build their own house with the money given them in compensation for their homes in Gush Katif that were destroyed by the government. Construction costs are generally much higher per meter than that which the Evacuation/Compensation law grants them for their demolished homes.
Several other communities are also in initial planning stages of building their new communities, a year and a half after the Disengagement. These include:
On the other hand, the families of Shirat HaYam, the small seaside town of temporary structures just outside N'vei Dekalim, were told last month that their plans to move to Maskiyot in the Jordan Valley were approved - and later found out that Defense Minister Amir Peretz had rescinded his consent.
Shomeriya and Shirat HaYam
In Shomeriya, ten kilometers south of Amatzia and 20 kilometers north of Be'er Sheva in the northern Negev, some 50 families from Atzmona moved in nearly a year ago - but are still suffering from difficult conditions. The government paid some $300,000 to each of a dozen families of the failing left-wing kibbutz Shomeriya, and they moved out in favor of the new pioneers. However, the Bezeq phone company, Israel's largest, has not yet built the necessary telephony infrastructure there - affecting the health services in the town. The local Klalit Health Fund clinic, which provides health services, cannot connect to the company's main computer because of the lack of a phone infrastructure. Bezeq says it is working on the issue, explaining that the previous residents had worked with a competing phone company, HOT. They moved out nearly a year ago, however.
For more information on the Gush Katif refugees and how to help, click on www.katifund.org/English/
The families of Netzer Hazani were given reason for hope, while those of Atzmonah-Shomeriya and Shirat Hayam scored a minus.
Netzer Hazani and Yesodot
Following a recent government decision to build a permanent community for Netzer Hazani, the local planning committee submitted a proposal at the end of last week to expand Moshav Yesodot for that purpose.
Some 50 families from Netzer Hazani, the oldest Gush Katif community, are currently living in temporary quarters in Ein Tzurim, east of Ashkelon. Their new community has now been designated for Yesodot, some ten miles to the northeast - in a bloc of religious communities that have opened their doors to the Gush Katif expellees.
Just past Yesodot is Yad Binyamin, where hundreds of Gush Katif families are living, and where many of them are ultimately to build their permanent homes. And to the west of Yad Binyamin is Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim, where the expelled families of Ganei Tal lived temporarily and to where they are scheduled to return.
In between Yad Binyamin and Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim is Beit Chilkiyah, a moshav populated by Hassidic families.
Anita Tucker is a founding member of Netzer Hazani whose celery farm there was one of the many casualties of the Disengagement in 2005. Arutz-7 asked if she is heartened by what seems to be progress towards rebuilding her destroyed town. "There are two fronts," she said. "The local plans are being approved at a good rate, and that's positive. But we need to sign a contract between us, Yesodot and the government - and the government is not yet providing the right terms for either us or for Yesodot."
Anita explained that the government must pay Yesodot for the land, and pay the contractors to build public buildings and infrastructures at a level befitting a 30-year-old community such as Netzer Hazani.
"For instance," she said, "each of us paid a hefty sum to build our synagogue, as Jews all over the world do. Should we now have to start all over from scratch?" Similarly with other public buildings, such as cultural centers, a mikvah, a shopping center - the residents say that these buildings were built over the course of years, and it would be unfair for them to have to wait a similar number of years for them to be rebuilt.
The plan is for the government to grant a dunam of land [1000 square meters, nearly a quarter of an acre] to each family, in exchange for the 1.5 dunams they each had in Netzer Hazani. "We agreed to this compromise," Tucker said.
Each family will have to build their own house with the money given them in compensation for their homes in Gush Katif that were destroyed by the government. Construction costs are generally much higher per meter than that which the Evacuation/Compensation law grants them for their demolished homes.
Several other communities are also in initial planning stages of building their new communities, a year and a half after the Disengagement. These include:
- The families of Ganei Tal, currently living in an integral neighborhood in Yad Binyamin, are to build in Chafetz Chaim.
- Many families of Katif are scheduled to build a new town in Amatzia, in the Lachish region between Kiryat Gat and southern Judea.
- Many families of N'vei Dekalim and others, currently living in Nitzan, just north of Ashkelon, are awaiting finalization for their new community there.
- Assorted families from Gan-Or, Gadid, Morag, and others, are to build in Nitzanim.
- Two communities in Yad Binyamin are working to build a permanent presence in the burgeoning town of Yad Binyamin: Yeshivat Torat HaChaim, and Gag Anak [Giant Roof] - an acronym for Gan-Or, Gadid, Atzmona, N'vei Dekalim, and Katif, the five Gush Katif towns in which these families lived.
On the other hand, the families of Shirat HaYam, the small seaside town of temporary structures just outside N'vei Dekalim, were told last month that their plans to move to Maskiyot in the Jordan Valley were approved - and later found out that Defense Minister Amir Peretz had rescinded his consent.
Shomeriya and Shirat HaYam
In Shomeriya, ten kilometers south of Amatzia and 20 kilometers north of Be'er Sheva in the northern Negev, some 50 families from Atzmona moved in nearly a year ago - but are still suffering from difficult conditions. The government paid some $300,000 to each of a dozen families of the failing left-wing kibbutz Shomeriya, and they moved out in favor of the new pioneers. However, the Bezeq phone company, Israel's largest, has not yet built the necessary telephony infrastructure there - affecting the health services in the town. The local Klalit Health Fund clinic, which provides health services, cannot connect to the company's main computer because of the lack of a phone infrastructure. Bezeq says it is working on the issue, explaining that the previous residents had worked with a competing phone company, HOT. They moved out nearly a year ago, however.
For more information on the Gush Katif refugees and how to help, click on www.katifund.org/English/