The letter, signed by the Hyatt Hotel management, stated, "We hereby inform you that as of tomorrow, Thursday, after breakfast, the hotel will cease granting services, food or cleaning to the guests of the Disengagement Authority. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation." The letter explained that the Authority had signed a contract with the hotel only through Thursday, and that the hotel could not provide services without being paid.
For the former Gush Katif residents, this news was impossible to digest - for they literally had no place to go. Several dozen of them are scheduled to move to pre-fab caravillas in Nitzan - where hundreds of other expelled families live in temporary quarters - but these structures will not be ready for another month. Another group of some 80 families, who are scheduled to move to similar buildings in Shafir, know only that their caravillas won't be ready until long after the ones in Nitzan are ready.
Nitzan is located north of Ashkelon, and Shafir is northeast of Ashekon, on the road to Kiryat Malachi.
The bitter decree was slightly sweetened last night, when an extension was reached allowing the homeless guests to remain until this coming Monday, Oct. 31. One guest, Elimelech Fixler, told Arutz-7, "Apparently, the Knesset provided money for hotels for the residents only through Oct. 31. Our contract was only through the 27th, so they made a nice gesture and equalized us with the others. But we still have no idea what we will do come Monday."
Fixler said he understood that MK Uri Ariel and N'vei Dekalim secretariat head Lior Kalfa were to meet this afternoon with Acting Finance Minister Ehud Olmert to see if ways could be found to provide more funding for housing for the evictees.
Arutz-7 called MK Ariel, who provided the following welcome news:
"The meeting has been pushed off until next week, but in the meanwhile, I succeeded in obtaining an extension for the people in the Hyatt until Nov. 15. We hope to extend it even longer, until the caravillas are ready."
In the meanwhile, the difficulties of living in a hotel refuse to go away, and even intensify. Asked if it was true that the respect traditionally accorded parents and teachers by the children of Gush Katif had been dissipated, Fixler said,
"Look, there is no family framework here. Family life has been all but ruined. Each family has two or three rooms, and when the parents go to sleep, the children are free to go out or do what they want. I have heard that some of our youth have already been seen hanging out at Zion Square late at night... Even worse, there are those who have been psychologically scarred by this ordeal - screaming out, bedwetting, not being able to sleep. One child in the hotel said something today about wanting to die... When children are expelled time after time, it begins to tell on them. Though I am not facing these problems, thank G-d, I can tell you that on the day of the expulsion, they brought our family to a hotel - and there was no room for us. So we had to stay on the bus for four hours while they figured out where we should go. The children felt, 'Not only do they throw us out, but they don't want us anywhere?'"
As do many of the former Gush Katif residents, Fixler ended the conversation on an optimistic note: "From here in this hotel, we can see G-d's house [the Temple Mount] in ruins - so if He can take being in exile for 2,000 years, then we can withstand it for a few months."
For the former Gush Katif residents, this news was impossible to digest - for they literally had no place to go. Several dozen of them are scheduled to move to pre-fab caravillas in Nitzan - where hundreds of other expelled families live in temporary quarters - but these structures will not be ready for another month. Another group of some 80 families, who are scheduled to move to similar buildings in Shafir, know only that their caravillas won't be ready until long after the ones in Nitzan are ready.
Nitzan is located north of Ashkelon, and Shafir is northeast of Ashekon, on the road to Kiryat Malachi.
The bitter decree was slightly sweetened last night, when an extension was reached allowing the homeless guests to remain until this coming Monday, Oct. 31. One guest, Elimelech Fixler, told Arutz-7, "Apparently, the Knesset provided money for hotels for the residents only through Oct. 31. Our contract was only through the 27th, so they made a nice gesture and equalized us with the others. But we still have no idea what we will do come Monday."
Fixler said he understood that MK Uri Ariel and N'vei Dekalim secretariat head Lior Kalfa were to meet this afternoon with Acting Finance Minister Ehud Olmert to see if ways could be found to provide more funding for housing for the evictees.
Arutz-7 called MK Ariel, who provided the following welcome news:
"The meeting has been pushed off until next week, but in the meanwhile, I succeeded in obtaining an extension for the people in the Hyatt until Nov. 15. We hope to extend it even longer, until the caravillas are ready."
In the meanwhile, the difficulties of living in a hotel refuse to go away, and even intensify. Asked if it was true that the respect traditionally accorded parents and teachers by the children of Gush Katif had been dissipated, Fixler said,
"Look, there is no family framework here. Family life has been all but ruined. Each family has two or three rooms, and when the parents go to sleep, the children are free to go out or do what they want. I have heard that some of our youth have already been seen hanging out at Zion Square late at night... Even worse, there are those who have been psychologically scarred by this ordeal - screaming out, bedwetting, not being able to sleep. One child in the hotel said something today about wanting to die... When children are expelled time after time, it begins to tell on them. Though I am not facing these problems, thank G-d, I can tell you that on the day of the expulsion, they brought our family to a hotel - and there was no room for us. So we had to stay on the bus for four hours while they figured out where we should go. The children felt, 'Not only do they throw us out, but they don't want us anywhere?'"
As do many of the former Gush Katif residents, Fixler ended the conversation on an optimistic note: "From here in this hotel, we can see G-d's house [the Temple Mount] in ruins - so if He can take being in exile for 2,000 years, then we can withstand it for a few months."