Twenty years after being evicted from her home in Netzer Hazani, one of the Jewish communities of Gush Katif, Anita Tucker tells Arutz Sheva-Israel National News that the pain has never left—and neither has the dream of returning to rebuild Jewish life in Gaza.
“I lived in Netzer Hazani for thirty years. My children and grandchildren were born there, and I had hoped our great-grandchildren would be born there too. I was a farmer—I grew every vegetable and flower imaginable,” Tucker recounts.
“I deeply miss the sand, the sea, the people who were kind to one another, and that part of the Land of Israel that I still want to return to. Jews lived in Gaza for generations. The younger generation of Gush Katif grew up loving that place. Ten of my grandchildren fought in Gaza during the war. One of them, who was three years old during the Disengagement, sent a message to his parents from Gaza saying, ‘I’m home.’ That brought him joy,” she adds.
Tucker rejects the claim that Gush Katif residents would have suffered the brunt of the October 7th massacre had they still lived in Gaza. “That’s simply not true. We were the ones protecting the country. We were strong, we had serious-minded emergency response teams, and the Arabs respected us. Once they sensed weakness, they trampled over us.”
In her view, the Hamas massacre caused many in the Gaza envelope region—some of whom had opposed living in Gush Katif at the time—to rethink their position. “It’s true that people in the Gaza border area once protested against us and urged us to leave here as quickly as possible, but many of them now realize you can’t live there today without real security. In my opinion, the only way to defend ourselves is for Gaza to be Jewish.”
As far as Tucker’s concerned, she’s ready to return to Gush Katif tomorrow. “One of the Gush Katif youth, now a well-known engineer, teamed up with a city planner and they drew up plans—not only to rebuild Gush Katif, but the entire Gaza Strip—with many Jews living there. We’re going back because that’s the only way to be strong.”