"In The Jerusalem Gold Hotel"
by Hillel Fendel
http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=92390
November 7, 2005

Eleven weeks after the disengagement, many of the expelled families continue to be shuffled along from one short-lived proposed solution to another. Former Gush Katif residents and several Likud MKs met this week at the Jerusalem Gold Hotel, where many of the families have been deposited. One woman from N'vei Dekalim cried out,

"What do you want? That we should just evaporate? Every plan that arises falls a second later because there is no money or whatever. You had money to put up new gravestones, so that there wouldn't be a scandal -- but money for a roof over our heads you don't have. What harm did we do to you? Everyone says that the disengagement is behind us -- but behind who? We're jailed here in the hotel. Our lives are stuck in a container and we don't see an end."

B'Sheva correspondent Ariel Kahane visited the Gold Hotel this week, and reported,

"Two and a half months after the erasure of the communities, and the emotional stability of the residents is deteriorating. Thousands of them are still closed up in cages of gold, conducting lives on the fringe of sanity. Children are sometimes locked out of their parents' automatic-lock rooms, while others receive a cold stare of rebuke from hotel workers for having taken an apple from the kitchen between meals. Some teenagers steal out of their rooms in the middle of the night to who-knows-where, while their parents in the other room have no control; their own situation is not much better."

"This impossible situation," Kahane writes, "weakens their stature, and accelerates fissures in their family structure. Many of the adults are not working, and there are already couples that are beginning to crack because of the forced idleness."

The problems do not exist only in the hotels. Many of the several hundred families in the new caravila [small and temporary pre-fab housing] village of Nitzan, north of Ashkelon, have no jobs and an uncertain housing future. The former Gush Katif community of Bdolach is a prime example:

Some 35 Bdolach families (out of close to 40 that lived there on the eve of the expulsion) are currently in Nitzan -- but of these, 30 were farmers, and only one of them has begun to work the fields! "That particular man was both industrious and fortunate," said Chaim B., who lived in Bdolach for the last six months of its existence, "as his parents had a plot of land on a moshav that they were not working, so he took it over. But everyone else is reduced to waiting for solutions from the government -- and this involves finding land, problems of its distance from their homes, what type of agriculture, beginning anew, and the like. For people in their late 40's and 50's, it's not easy to start again -- and especially when so much is settled."

Chaim said that though there was much to do until now -- "all sorts of arrangements, preparing for the holidays, etc." -- now begins a potentially dangerous period of near-total idleness and boredom. "Some of the men used to study for an hour or two each day in the nearby Torat HaChaim yeshiva in N'vei Dekalim [which has re-located to Yad Binyamin, a half-hour drive away -- ed.], but that arrangement has not yet been reinstated... They need jobs!"

For others, the problems of boredom have not yet begun -- because they are still busy figuring out where to live for the coming months. Some 30 families of the former Moshav Katif have moved to the King Saul Hotel in Ashkelon, after having lived for two months in the dormitories of the Kfar Pines Girls High School. Ten other Katif families moved to the Atzmonah "Faith City" (Ir HaEmunah) encampment near Netivot, hoping to join up with their former townsmen as soon as possible.

Though they have chosen a site for the new permanent community they wish to build -- in the Lachish area -- they have been on a roller-coaster ride regarding where to live for the coming two years. The possibility of Eibim near Sderot was nixed at the last moment by the government; Nehushah was on the table for a while but became irrelevant; Even Shmuel was then proposed -- and now Moshav Amatziah appears to be the most likely.

Aryeh, of Moshav Katif, told Arutz-7 today, "Some of our people are right now on a tour of Amatziah, and this could be the best option, as it is very close to our permanent site. Even the government appears to be coming towards us, hoping that we will be their first successful community; until now the government has not succeeded in finding a communal solution for even one town! The high-rise apartment building for Kfar Darom is still stuck, etc., and they're hoping that they can succeed with us. They've even offered to build a new road between Shomeriyah, where Atzmonah is supposed to go, and Amatziah, so that we'll be able to send our children to school there. We have also asked for special consideration -- larger caravans -- for our large families. We hope that within a week or two, we'll have answers as to whether, once and for all, something will finally work out."

Aryeh explained that Moshav Katif is currently divided up into four different locations -- two Ashkelon hotels, Yad Binyamin, and Ir HaEmunah -- and that they greatly fear that they will not end up together in one community. "One of the main reasons we are so anxious to remain unified," he explained, "in addition to simply wanting to retain our beautiful community, is to help the 6-7 families that for various reasons are not eligible for government help. We don't want them to fall by the wayside."

One community that did not survive the expulsion and simply shattered into small pieces is Slav. Formerly located in the southwestern tip of the Gaza Strip, Slav was a small and young town of only 12 families - each of which is now on its own. One family with two children had been living for the past several weeks in one room in the Otzem pre-military preparatory yeshiva, where the husband studied, but the conditions finally became unbearable; they moved this week, on their own, to a private apartment near her parents. Other families live in Ir HaEmunah, Yad Binyamin, or on their own -- and the community of Slav no longer exists.

"81 Days Without A Home"
by Hillel Fendel
http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=92673
November 10, 2005

Some 1,200 people rallied on behalf of thousands of expelled residents from Gush Katif and Shomron in Jerusalem Tuesday night. 600 families are still living in tents, hotels, or dormitories. The protest was organized by grassroots activists living in Talmon, between Ramallah and Modiin. Expelled residents still living in temporary quarters addressed the crowd and explained the difficulties of spending nearly 12 weeks living in hotels and the like.

One woman said that she was told in the Interior Ministry that the policy was not to provide help for the expellees unless they officially change their address from Gush Katif to whatever hotel they were staying. Another couple changed its address to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station for this reason. Other speakers talked of various other humiliations they face daily.

The call echoing from all the speakers was addressed to the Prime Minister and the government, asking them to turn a listening ear to the pleas of the people they made homeless and to begin relating to them as normal people.

The Yesha Council of Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza released statistics before the rally, showing that 35% of the evicted families are still living in ultra-temporary quarters such as hotels and tents, and 40% are in caravans, pre-fab housing or other two-year solutions until their permanent housing becomes available. Among the latter group are former residents of Ganei Tal now living in Yad Binyamin; expellees from Atzmona and Netzarim residing in Yevul and Yated in the Halutza Sands area; some 300 families from various communities living in the newly-built pre-fab community of Nitzan; and others. Communal solutions have still not been found for places such as Moshav Katif, Kfar Darom, Netzer Hazani, and N'vei Dekalim. For others, such as Slav, Ganim, Kadim, and Dugit, it is too late for such solutions, as they have already broken apart.

The Council notes that three-quarters of the residents are still without work. Seven-eighths of the residents have not received any advance payments on their government-promised financial compensation, leaving them without money to pay for basic essentials. This Thursday, an emergency Supreme Court session has been called to hear a petition by the Land of Israel Legal Forum, demanding that all compensation money be freed up.

The L'maan Achai [On Behalf of My Brothers] organization, which is coordinating much of the relief efforts, reports that the situation is particularly difficult in the King Sha'ul Hotel in Ashkelon. The hotel was originally disqualified for housing the deportees because of poor health conditions, yet despite this is now housing them. The hotel has cut down on meals, reduced electricity and heating, provided an insufficient number of blankets, and the like. In one case, a family of five people is living in one room.

Participants at the rally held signs reading, "81 days without a home," "There is no solution for every resident" [a reference to the government's television-and-radio campaign boasting of a 'solution for every resident'], "Have you been thrown out and also abandoned?" and the like.

"Let My People Sue: Evacuees Regain Dignity In Court"
by David Bedein (media@actcom.co.il)
Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency
November 20, 2005

Three months ago, 10,000 people were forcibly evicted by the Israeli Government from their privately owned homes and farms in 25 Jewish communities in GUSH KATIF, NORTHERN GAZA and NORTHERN SAMARIA. A few days later, all of their homes were bulldozed into rubble. An estimated 400 public buildings were not destroyed. Even though clause seven of the Disengagement Law forbid Israel from handing over any assets to anyone "involved in terrorist activity", the government of Israel ignored the law and handed over these buildings to the Palestinian Authority, even after the PA had proclaimed that terrorist organizations would be given many of these buildings.

Unlike the Yamit evacuation of 5,000 people in 1982, where families were given three years to resettle, these people were given six months to leave, from the time of the Knesset decision on February 20th until their eviction on August 15th, 2005.

The final decision of the Israel High Court of Justice, on which the Katif and Samaria communities had pinned their legal hopes, was held on June 6th, 2005, when the Israel High Court of Justice upheld the Disengagement Law, despite the opinion of the court that it violated the human rights and civil liberties basic law of the state of Israel.

Despite the publicly accepted notion that the people from Katif and Samaria were not making preparations to leave, the fact is that as early as November 2004, these communities designated the lawyers of the Israel Legal Forum to negotiate for compensation agreements with the Israeli government. However, the government refused to begin negotiating with their duly appointed legal representatives until April, 2005.

Meanwhile, Deputy Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres informed the Israeli media on July 7th, 2005 that the US government would provide more than two billion dollars to cover the costs of the disengagement.

However, on June 25th, 2005, Israel Resource News Agency had already been informed by top U.S. Congressional Sources that no U.S. money would be forthcoming for the disengagement process, which Israel had declared as a unilateral act.

This was two months before Hurricane Katrina hit the lives and pocketbooks of so many Americans

Therefore, the government of Israel has been slow to offer compensation to the people who were evicted from their homes. As of November 15th, 2005, 75% of the people evicted had received no compensation whatsoever, at a time when 85% of these people were still unemployed, after having been expelled from communities of full employment.

As a result, the people who were evicted need help to go to court to sue for the basics of compensation. The pro-bono lawyers who have helped the evictees do not have the ability to sue on the issues that follow, without basic fees and coverage of court costs.

Here are some of the issues which the evacuees must sue for:

1. Mental cruelty, as evidenced by petty requests for documentation before any compensation would be given: 29-year-old phone bills, old report cards, letters addressed to them to prove that they really lived in the homes that they lived in, while the Israeli government disengagement authority, known as The Sela Authority, gave inaccurate information to the media that "almost all of the evacuees had received the compensation that they had coming to them". A couple in their eightees who had gone through concentration camps who left in July had not received one shekel of compensation as of November 15th, 2005.

2. Loss of livelihood Many of the self-employed people from these communities were denied employment benefits. Many of those who worked for non profit organizations in the area of health, education and welfare were also denied unemployment benefits..

3. Business people whose businesses were worth $150,000-200,000 have been offered less than fifteen percent of the worth of their businesses, and they must spend their own savings to go to court to appeal for increased compensation for their businesses.

4. Three months after their eviction, the majority of farmers still do not have appropriate land or arrangements and they stand to lose their export markets abroad. They have already lost several seasons, and the katif people estimate that only 10% of the farmers will be able to return to agriculture. Meanwhile, some produce exporters offered menial jobs at minimum wage.

5. "Guilty until proven innocent" was one of the reasons used in delaying the compensation, because "maybe" the evacuee did something violent AND/OR was arrested during the expulsion. If a person got into a scuffle while being evicted from his home, why should he lose the value of his home? If a teenager's behavior was not appropriate, why should that family lose the value of their home? Meanwhile, the vast majority of families who are being denied any compensation have no police files or charges whatsoever against them

7. Loss of investment in homes. No compensations was offered for porches, storage rooms, or other improvements they added to their homes. "ADVANCE COMPENSATION" for homes was given to people whose original small homes were purchased 20 years ago, and ONLY 75% OF THAT.

8. Damage to students. Students did not have the opportunity to do matriculation exams properly, or start college properly. Younger students were shuffled from school to school. The government refused to recognize the school and kindergarten in the improvised town of Ir Haemuna, while "Special needs children" in Ir Haemuna had to fight to get PARTIAL treatment, two months after school began.

9. A family whose loved one pass away during this period of temporary housing was forced to pay the government $6,000 for a burial plot, since free burial is only provided to a home town residents of a given municipality. Only after Israel Resource News Agency revealed this, an Israeli Government Minister intervened to return the check to the bereaved family.

10. Families are still forced to pay regular mortgage payments for homes and farms that the government of Israel bulldozed three months ago. Paying out a monthly mortgage for rubble seems highly unusual.

11. Families must invest tens of thousands of shekels for storage in since they will live in mobile homes for two or three years. IN ADDITION, THEY MUST SPEND LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY FOR WINTER CLOTHES WHILE THEY CANNOT ACCESS THEIR CONTAINERS.

12. Hundreds of people who were arrested during the expulsion are confined to their homes under house arrest, because of decisions rendered by the Israeli courts that they are "ideological criminals" who are "dangerous to society".

In conclusion, many good hearts have opened up to these people who were living proud and productive lives until their expulsion. However, much of the charitable help that has been rendered to the evacuees has caused further trauma to these people, as they are rendered a new status as "charity cases". Indeed, immediately following the expulsion, major organizations allocated hundreds of school bags to the estimated 3,800 children who had no schools to go to, little means of support and no access to their own clothes. These gifts were received with mixed feelings.

The highest level of giving to someone in distress is to give that person the chance to stand on his own feet once again.

The people who were kicked out of their homes need help to go to court to redress their grievances, to regain their dignity.

Our news agency would be pleased to refer people to the proper addresses to help these people to sue...indeed, to regain some of their dignity.

At a time when efforts are under way in Israel to force thousands more people from their homes, the timing of this litigation could not be more appropriate.

"HARASSMENT BY MAIL"
by Rachel Saperstein (ruchimo@netvision.net.il)
previously: Neve Dekalim, Gush Katif
now: Jerusalem Gold Hotel
November 27, 2005.

Telephone Company. We will have to pay a penalty of IS 280, the letter stated, for breaking our one-year contract for internet use. "The government threw us out in August," we countered. "They destroyed our phone lines. Sue the government for breach of contract." We are awaiting their reply.

Twenty-three Neve Dekalim families received a letter from SELAH -- The Expulsion Authority. "We don't deny you lived in Neve Dekalim. But you rented privately rather than through the local council. So you are not entitled to housing in Nitzan, or compensation of any kind. You have six days to vacate your hotel!"

Five other families received letters saying "Though you rented privately we will allow you to rent a 'caravilla' of 60 square meters. But it must be in an area 'everyone has turned down'."

We all signed a petition today -- Everyone goes or no one goes to Nitzan. And we all will live in the same neighborhood.

Slowly, very slowly, the families are moving out of the hotels and into the prized, paper-thin fiberglass trailers. "Congratulations you have received a prized key!" says their letter.

Like many others Moshe and I have received neither letter nor key nor compensation of any kind, and are simply left in limbo.

Ship containers packed, stored and guarded by the IDF are now reaching the Nitzan Displaced Persons camp. Many have been broken into. Furniture, appliances and clothing were stolen or vandalized. Half-eaten food strewn about by the packers lay moldering in the containers, giving off a stench. Rats left their mark.

But there are those who make a difference. The Band-Aid Fund has sent seed money to each family as it moves into its trailer. But the needs, the replacements, the small items, cost so much. Paying off the mortgage of the destroyed homes, food, electricity, water, payments for the container rental eats away at the small government advance.

Avery Harris of Petach Tikva moves peripatetically among the hotels, tent cities and trailers looking for leaders and encourages their endeavors. Mark Launer of Jerusalem helped establish the Student Loan Fund.

Unemployment among our people is nearly 80%. Rabbi Yosef Rimon of Alon Shvut, a volunteer, has opened an employment agency in Nitzan using the internet as his tool. "Job Katif" is bringing in the data to place our people in jobs. College volunteers help write CVs and prepare for interviews. Rav Rimon has managed to place people in satisfying jobs and this has made all the difference.

And so we see light, a small light barely flickering. Despite government pronouncements of "a solution for all" there is no help, only the harassment of the authorities. But the decency of private individuals who have come to help, people like yourselves, is making all the difference.

The BAND-AID FUND is now collecting money to give each family 1,000 shekels (approximately $240) as seed money as it prepares to start a new life in Nitzan. You can help a family. Send your contribution to:

Central Fund for Israel, Rehov Hagoel 13, Efrat 90435, Israel
Earmarked: Band-Aid Fund

OR

Central Fund for Israel, attention: Arthur Marcus, Marcus Bros. Textiles, 980 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY 10018, USA
Earmarked: Band-Aid Fund

Report #14: State Of (Evicted) Gush Katif, Northern Gaza And Northern Shomron Communities
(commissioned by Israel Resource News Agency and the Center for Near East Policy Research)
Toby Klein Greenwald (toby@wholefamily.com)
November 28, 2005.

WHERE ARE THE EVICTED TODAY?

Sources: Information on the Gazan communities is from Moti Sender, editor of Katif.net and resident of Ganei Tal/Yad Binyamin, who based some of his information on an Arutz-7 report, and supplemented that from his extensive personal contacts within the Gush Katif communities. The Center also consulted additional sources within the communities, and a volunteer who works with the communities. Information from the Shomron communities is from Menora Hazani, community leader and documentary film maker, and Yaakov Shalev, regional director in the Shomron.

The Sela (Disengagement) Authority uses the categories "immediate", meaning where the communities have been since the week of August 15, or some time afterwards, as some communities have been moved from place to place, and "Temporary" meaning if they are in a location where they will be for the next two years.

With the exception of families from Ganim and Kadim, from the northern Shomron, most of whom bought houses in the moshavim in the Afula area, no permanent housing solution has been enabled yet for any of the evictees. Approximately 490 families are still living in tent camps, hotels, dormitories, third-rate caravans, i.e., in what the Disengagement Authority defines as "immediate" locations, before the "temporary", where they will live for the next two years while awaiting a permanent housing solution. At an average of more than six people to a family, that means that at least 3,000 people are still homeless. The pending agreements with Shomria (re: Ir Haemuna) and the beginning, this week, of "caravillas" in Ein Tzurim, will still take several months to be ready.

The hotel-dwellers were notified that they will all be transferred to one of the hotels in Jerusalem, while they are waiting for their "caravillas", which could take at least another month. It is not yet clear how this will affect the school changes.

The numbers below are approximate and correct on the day of the report.

Gush Katif:
Neve Dekalim: Immediate (60 families by the end of this week): The Jerusalem hotels Regency (Hyatt), Caesar, Gold, Shaarei Yerushalayim, Shalom. The King Saul Hotel in Ashkelon (26 families), Kfar Hanofesh (75 families), Hafetz Haim (9 families). Temporary: Nitzan, Taanachim, Kibbutz Yavne, Yad Binyamin, Moshav Yated in the Negev.
Bdoloch: Temporary: Nitzan
Gadid: Immediate (26 families): Hafetz Haim; Temporary: Nitzan,
Gan Or: Immediate (4 families): Hafetz Haim guest house. Temporary: Nitzan and Kibbutz Yavna.
Peat Sadeh: Temporary: Moshav Mavki'im (near Ashkelon)
Rafiah Yam: Temporary: Moshav Mavki'im, Oshra, and Amuka
Netzer Hazani: Immediate (26 families): Hispin (Golan Heights). Immediate (26 still in "immediate" caravans): Kibbutz Ein Tzurim, scattered.
Morag: Temporary: Nitzan, Tenna-Omarim (15 families) (southern Hebron hills)
Moshav Katif: Immediate (35 families): King Saul Hotel (Ashkelon), Hafetz Haim guest house (8 families), Ir Haemuna
Tel Katifa: Immediate/temporary: Even Shmuel
Shirat Hayam: Immediate (13 families): Alon Shvut, Kibbutz Sa'ad
Netzarim: Immediate (22 families): Karnei Shomron (waiting to move to Ariel), Temporary: Yivul (Negev 47 families)
Kfar Darom: Immediate (58 families): Paradise Hotel (Beer Sheva), Omarim, and hopefully, soon, in a high rise apartment building in Ashkelon. (Temporary)
Atzmona and Slav: Immediate (57 families) at Ir Haemuna (near Netivot), supposedly moving out in about three weeks, Hafetz Haim guest house. Temporary: Yated (Negev 30+), Shaarei Avraham.
Ganei Tal: Temporary: Yad Binyamin

Northern Gaza:
Elei Sinai: Immediate (57 families): The tent city at the crossroads of Yad Mordecai. Temporary: Nitzan, Kibbutz Carmia (56 families, including some from Nisanit), Or Haner.
Nisanit: Temporary: Nitzan, Bustan Hagalil (13 families), Kibbutz Carmia, scattered apartments in Ashkelon.
Dugit: Temporary: Bustan Hagalil

Northern Shomron (Samaria):
Homesh: Immediate (7 families): Shavei Shomron. Menora Hazani, community leader, says, "We're waiting for a 'long term temporary' solution, in Shavei Shomron; but the government isn't willing for us to live in Yesha." Yaakov Shalev (057-7218991), regional director, says, "The settlement division of the Jewish Agency [headed by Avraham Duvdevani TKG] agrees that we should use the pre-fab homes that we transferred from Homesh and Sanur, for the uprooted families, but the government is not allowing it, because they want to transfer the pre-fabs to the Negev."
Temporary: Yad Hana, scattered (Netanya, Golan, Gedera, etc.) Yoav Ariel menahel hahevel; Bentzi Lieberman politically; Uri Ariel
Sanur: Immediate (7 families): Shavei Shomron, scattered (Yitzhar, Kedumim, etc.) They have the same request as Homesh.
Ganim and Kadim: These scattered among the moshavim in the Afula area, most bought houses, some are still scattered and/or renting.

UNEMPLOYMENT AND ATTEMPTED REESTABLISHMENT OF BUSINESSES

According to David Porat, who operates the website www.jobkatif.org.il that was created by Rav Yosef Rimon of Alon Shvut, there are still almost 2,000 people from the uprooted communities who are unemployed; roughly 80% of the uprooted population. This statistic includes both men and women. Rav Rimon is also organizing retraining programs.

In some cases, these are farmers for whom the government has not yet provided appropriate land alternatives. Among the farmer-exporters are those who grew chives, organic cucumbers, pineapple, cherry tomatoes, bug-less greens, chili peppers, regular peppers and other produce.

In addition, there are no unemployment benefits offered the self-employed; their only remedy is to hire an attorney, at their own expense, and go to court to try to achieve compensation for their destroyed businesses.

Those who were self-employed who wished to reestablish their businesses in Nitzan, where they now live, have run up against a brick wall of government refusal.

Sample cases: A former vegetable store owner from Gan Or and a pizzeria owner from Neve Dekalim are just two examples. When they asked to reestablish their stores in Nitzan, they were told by the Housing Authority that the government had decided to open up only a 200 square meter supermarket, instead, even though there are 500 families living in Nitzan, so they will not be able, even at their own expense, to reestablish their successful Gush Katif businesses. They attempted to explain that the Gush Katif people have their own style and needs, regarding, for example, the types of kashrut approvals they accept, etc. In addition, the significance of a pizzeria in a small town with no other outlet for the teenagers, is "not just about food". (The teenagers also have no basketball or soccer court, even though this is one of the ways that boys, especially, deal with their frustrations and boredom.) The spokesman for the Housing Authority, who was asked for an explanation in two phone calls and one e-mail, said two weeks before the date on this report that he would get back to us but never did.

Salaried Workers

In other cases, people lost their jobs when the schools, social services and other offices were closed.

Sample cases: Chana Z., a single mother of six from Neve Dekalim, still living in the (Hyatt) Regency Hotel in Jerusalem, says that she worked for the Police Department. They have offered her a job in Ashdod, but she obviously cannot take it till her "caravilla" is ready in Nitzan, which may take another month, at least.

Tami and Shlomo Aricha of Neve Dekalim, currently living in the Regency Hotel in Jerusalem, were asked to bring their children's kindergarten-graduation certificates to prove how long the family had lived in Gush Katif. She is a pre-school teacher, unemployed. Shlomo, a scribe, was lucky -- Rav Yosef Rimon (www.jobkatif.org.il), found him a part time job with the Beit El Tefilin Company. They will eventually move to Nitzan which will make it easier on their son, who currently has to travel 45 minutes each way to school in Yad Binyamin, but more difficult for Shlomo to travel to his job.

Baruch and Dina Julie, from Nisanit, gave in all their required paperwork to the Disengagement Authority by April 20, and they have not yet received compensation. They and their neighbors, the Hadad's (who gave in their paperwork August 10), say they were told that it is because they asked for a private assessment of their home, and the Prime Minister's advisor, Ilan Cohen, reportedly told them a week ago, "Perhaps another week." Baruch is retired, but Nahum, who owned the supermarket in Nisanit, is unemployed and the Housing Authority has not said when or if they'll let him reestablish himself in Nitzan.

Teachers:

Although there is an official directive within the Ministry of Education to give preference to hiring teachers from the evicted communities, it is difficult to determine if this is implemented in practice.

Sample case: A teacher with excellent qualifications and experience, from Gush Katif, applied to a school in Ramle. In Gush Katif he had taught in the Katif High School Yeshiva, which was disbanded with the Disengagement. The other school he taught at is now in Ir Haemuna, which is far away from where he is living, since the Disengagement. In spite of the directive to give preference to teachers from Gush Katif, someone else was hired in his place. Shoshi Gutman, the Ministry of Education supervisor responsible for placing teachers, who was asked to comment, said she was told that there were only four hours available, whereas the prospective teacher had been told by the school official who interviewed him that he would be hired for a minimum of preparing two classes for matriculation exams (which would be at least eight hours).

Gutman also said, by way of general comment, that one of the supervisors working with her pointed out that the directive was only regarding teachers from Gush Katif who had been paid by the Ministry (i.e., elementary school teachers) and didn't apply to high school teachers, though she had taken it upon herself to extend her help to high school teachers as well. In any case, it is a moot point for those Katif teachers who still live far away from the schools in which they taught before.

Amutot:

People who were employed by non-profit organizations (amutot) dealing with health, education and welfare, such as those who worked for the local community center of Gush Katif, received no unemployment benefits.

A small ray of good news is that this week the Intel and Dan companies announced they would be providing jobs, including retraining, for some of the uprooted. Intel will take on 50 employees and Dan is offering jobs for 100 drivers. The Ministry of Tourism will reportedly be offering courses to the uprooted as tour leaders. The Intel and Dan initiative, according to Globes, was by the Investment Promotion Center of the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

While this initiative is welcomed, the question remains: Why did it take three months, whereas even a volunteer grassroots job-hunt group such as that run by Rav Yosef Rimon was up and running within days?

HOUSING

The Sela Authority claimed that they give between $350-650 per family for rent, depending on the family, with the average being $450. According to the Legal Forum, it does no know families that are receiving the $650. The Evacuation-Compensation Law stretches from NIS 21,000 per family per year [$367.00 a month at today's dollar exchange] for 3 people, to NIS 27,000 per year [$475.00 a month] for six people or more. Many families in Gush Katif and the Shomron have from 8-12 people, which means that even a 12-person family will have to find somewhere to rent for $475.00 a month.

According to Nili Tabachnik of Remax Realty, the following apartments can be rented for approximately $450: A five room apartment in western Afula, a four room apartment in Be'er Sheva, a three room apartment in a non-upscale neighborhood in Ashdod and a two room apartment in a better neighborhood in Ashdod, a four or five room apartment in Ashkelon, a four room apartment in the old sections of Beit Shemesh and a three room apartment in Ramat Beit Shemesh, a two or three room apartment in Gedara, and a three room apartment in moshavim near Ashkelon.

A quick sample taken from another source indicated that if an evictee family wanted to rent in Jerusalem, with $450 they would be able to rent two rooms in Givat Mordecai or the Katamonim (a more "modest" neighborhood than its sister, nearby Katamon).

The people living in Nitzan and Yad Binyamin are having the $450 housing allowance deducted, by the Disengagement Authority, automatically. The same size caravans, in locations over the green line but close to large cities, cost only NIS 400-800 ($85-170), the difference being that the "caravillas" have red roofs.

Regarding the quality of housing in the caravan camps, some of the families living in Nitzan and Yad Binyamin have reported, after the first heavy rain this week, leaking into their "caravillas". It was also reported that the sidewalks are sinking and breaking up at the caravan camps, following the rain, and are creating an environmental danger.

The Legal Forum working for the evictees reports that the apartments that had been rented in advance for the evictees in various cities are of poor quality and widely scattered; also that various agreements with the Disengagement Authority had been broken, such as the ones that would enable the Gadid community to reestablish itself in Masuot Yitzhak, and the Kfar Darom community to rent, as a group, one large building in Ashkelon.

The latest word (Katif.net) on the Kfar Darom community is that they will be considering moving to another border, into Kibbutz Cramim, in Lachish, which at the moment is occupied by five families, who hope to receive the same hefty compensation that the 11 families of Kibbutz Shomria are receiving from the government to vacate their kibbutz in the Lachish area for the Atzmona community. (The families of Kibbutz Shomria were promised $400,000 each, plus whatever benefits the uprooted of Gush Katif received.)

This week, those members of the Gush Katif communities who were "only" renters, including some who had rented for 15-20 years in Gush Katif, were sent letters by the Disengagement Authority stating that they have a week to leave the hotels, as they are not deserving of compensation. This only applies to those who were renting privately. Those who were renting from a government authority reportedly will be receiving a form of compensation.

DESTROYED PROPERTY

According to volunteers working with the uprooted, much of the property in the containers has been destroyed, including electrical appliances, closets and books. A number of evictees who were questioned regarding whether they knew about insurance, or compensation for destroyed possessions, did not think that suing would bring relief, as their trust in the Disengagement Authority and the government is totally eroded. They are clearly in need of legal and other counseling to acquire the energy needed for a legal battle.

COMMUNITY UNITY

Community organizing and atmosphere have been severely challenged. The communities are trying to "keep it together", but in some cases a new community chairman had to be elected, as people are scattered, and many of the communities have split up in one way or another. Analysis regarding this issue: The Jewish population of Gaza and the Shomron is not monolithic, so one could make a case that it is not necessarily a bad thing that people who, out of inertia, stayed in their original communities before the Disengagement, should choose a different style of community after. The problem is that these decisions cannot be made by the families merely on the basis of "community style", as the factors that have to be taken into account are: Employment for the husband, employment for the wife, schools for the children of different ages, social needs, etc. What is involved here is not merely a "shuffling" of the families within one united bloc, that would enable, for instance, a family to move to a different style community but the parents could still maintain their places of work, and the children their schools. In this case, due to the large geographical area over which the communities are now spread, a total move entails "buying" the whole package of that new location, or having one or more member of the family travel long distances. This travel time and expense does not appear in any element of compensation.

LIBRARY SAVED; SCHOOL EQUIPMENT LOST

The Gush Katif library has been reestablished in Yad Binyamin, with the help of the former librarian and volunteers. On the other hand, even though the teachers in the schools pleaded with the moetza of Gush Katif to allow them to remove valuable equipment and supplies, in order to reestablish their schools at the new locations, they were refused by the moetza, who may have been under orders of the receiver appointed by the government. The result was wide-spread looting and theft, and now the fledging schools are struggling with sorely inadequate equipment and supplies.

SCHOOL STRIKE

Last week the parents of children studying in the reestablished Gush Katif school in Mercaz Shapira went on strike due to the lack of equipment, psychological help, etc., and only during the strike did the Director General of the Ministry of Education, Ronit Tirosh, come to Nitzan to meet with the parents and look into solving the problems.

UPDATE ON DAYCARE SITUATION

Gila Yekutieli, the southern supervisor of daycare centers, under the auspices of the Minister of Trade, replied to our question regarding the babies from Moshav Katif whose parents, mostly unemployed and staying in the King Saul Hotel in Ashkelon, were asked to pay NIS 800 a month to put their children in the local Emunah daycare center. (Emunah was owed approximately NIS 270,000 by the same ministry for having operated daycare centers, free of charge, for all the babies in the hotels where the evicted were living. Emunah told us that the price of NIS 800 in Ashkelon was set by the Ministry.) Yekutieli said that the person to speak to is Tamar Almog, who is the overall supervisor of the country's daycare centers, as the price is a matter of principle. Yekutieli could not understand why the Moshav Katif people could not just pay from their compensation, until we explained that none of them had, to date, received compensation, and 80% of the mothers were still unemployed.

We spoke with Tamar Almog, who said that the decision could only be changed by speaking with the PM's office. Meanwhile, some of the mothers had set up their own internal daycare center in the hotel, even though the conditions are not right for it, as they cannot afford the daycare center.

UPROOTED RESERVE SOLDIERS ARRESTED FOR NOT DOING RESERVE DUTY

The Maariv site, NRG (http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/007/998.html), reported that during the night between November 14-15, military policemen arrested ten men, from among 170 altogether, who did not do reserve duty during the expulsion, some of whom discussed it in advance with their commanders and who were given to understand that there would not be repercussions. One of those was Avia Greenblatt, 28, married and a father of three, who was born and lived his whole life in Neve Dekalim. His father, Mordecai, told Maariv, "We were shocked to hear this -- he didn't even know he was considered AWOL, as he had spoken with his commander in advance, and explained that he wanted to remain with his family during the disengagement; his commander had been understanding."

Another example is that of Shomi Brown, father of five and wife pregnant with a sixth, who was expelled from Homesh in the Shomron, and therefore did not report for reserve duty, which fell exactly during the days of the Disengagement. He was arrested for 48 hours and sentenced to 14 days in prison. After approaches were made to the head commander in charge of reserve duty, requesting that he be released, the release was granted but it was then delayed and he was in prison for five days.

According to Katif.net (http://www.katif.net/ro_new.php?id=9435), some of the other soldiers arrested were not residents of Gush Katif but soldiers from elsewhere who also told their commanders that they did not want to take part in the Disengagement. (Note: At the time of the Disengagement, some observers claimed that the IDF underreported the number of soldiers refusing to participate. These numbers seem to indicate that they're "catching up" now.) In the wake of the wave of arrests, the legal advisors of the "Headquarters for Eretz Yisrael" (Mateh lma'an Eretz Yisrael) had advised all soldiers who did not show up for reserve duty, even for one day, to report to their unit's office so as to not be arrested.

The reply of the IDF spokesman to the Center's request for confirmation of the story was: "These sort of operations are carried out by the military police every few months and there is no connection to the disengagement. In the operation of capturing defectors (sic), by the military police, that began last Sunday, so far 300 soldiers from regular and reserve duty have been arrested for being absent from duty."

The Center further asked:

Why did the authorities who arrested the soldiers not take into account a) the fact that some of them had "cleared" it with their commanders in advance, and b) the fact that some of them had not shown up for miluim [reserve duty] because they were being evicted at that time from their homes and they wanted to stay with their families.

The IDF spokesman replied:
I am working on it.
I'll talk to you when i get the answers. (sic)

DISINFORMATION AT GA

The Disengagement was arguably the most traumatic event in Israel's history, the more so as it was in effect an act of war not by an outsider, but from within. Yet, there was not one session at the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities, held in Toronto on November 13-16, devoted to the event itself, only to the aftermath, called "Defining Ourselves After Disengagement".

Every one of the session's panelists were pro-disengagement, or connected in some way to PM Ariel Sharon or his government. They included MK and Deputy Minister Rabbi Michael Melchior, Avi Naor, the Israel Chair of the 2004 GA and member of the JAFI Board of Governors, and Dr. Liora Meridor, chair of Bezeq International, who, according to a pre-Rosh Hashana article in the Jerusalem Post, "was touted by Vice Premier, Acting Treasurer, and Minister ofIndustry, Trade and Labor Ehud Olmert as the next director-general ofthe Antitrust Authority".

The fourth panelist was Ari Shavit, columnist for the left-wing Haaretz newspaper, who was pro-disengagement, though he exhibited sympathy for the evicted. In an Haaretz column titled, "Israel Must Sit Shiva", Shavit wrote, "The hard-heartedness of the intellectual and legal elites in the face of the catastrophe that befell the residents of Gush Katif will not be forgotten. It will seep into the groundwater of our shared lives and pollute it. The Gush Katif residents were not fanatics; they were not the fascist enemy; they were believers. If the entire public does not know how to mourn the death of Gush Katif, its death will poison our lives." (Full article at: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtDisengagement.jhtml? itemNo=614347&contrassID=23&subContrassID=3&sbSubContrassID=0) The moderater was Jerusalem Post Editor-in-chief David Horovitz.

The UJC distributed a brochure at the GA on the Disengagement. The brochure was filled with inaccuracies and distortions, to which a response was written by this researcher. The GA brochure and the responses can be found at:

http://israelbehindthenews.com/pdf/FactSheetAndResponses.pdf. This response relates to the conditions of the temporary housing, the state of schoolchildren and students, employment issues, (lack of) compensation, and more.

In an earlier letter that had sent by senior UJC officials, following a board meeting in Chicago, they wrote:

"At our recent meetings in Chicago, the UJC Executive Committee and the Board of Trustees deliberated over the issue of Israel's Disengagement from Gaza and a portion of northern Samaria. The Executive Committee, which convened in person in Chicago on September 11, heard a report from Nachman Shai, UJC Senior Vice President and Director General of UJC Israel, as well as comments from Steve Nasatir (President, Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metro Chicago), Zeev Bielski (Chairman of the Executive, JAFI) and Professor Yossi Tamir (JDC Israel)"

"The entire issue of the disengagement, as expected, is now drawing less attention in general; political and security issues are now taking over the headlines.

* The Disengagement Authority is not providing comprehensive information on the current situation, and there's no other single authority to do that. [This is true. TKG]

* 500 families are still not negotiating with the Government. Some of them are people who recently lived in Gush Katif, but are not entitled to the financial compensation legalized by the law. The main opponents remain the former settlers from Neve Dekalim." [This number is wildly overblown, based on the statistics of the Legal Forum, that has been helping the evictees. TKG]

PRESS CONFERENCE WITH JAFI HEAD ZEEV BIELSKI

Jewish Agency head Zeev Bielski held a press conference recently for the North American Jewish media. When asked what the Jewish Agency is doing to uphold the decision of its board of governors of June 23, 2004, to rebuild the communities of Gush Katif, he said that the Agency is doing a lot, and gave the example of the Yad Binyamin caravan site that was, he said, set up a "few days after the Disengagement". When he was corrected -- that the people of Ganei Tal were only able to move into Yad Binyamin two months after the disengagement, he replied, "But we gave the land a few days after the Disengagement."

He also quoted the so-called "Eibim solution", but when he was reminded that it was the Jewish Agency that had specifically shot down the Eibim solution (according to which, the Moshav Katif people would have moved to the immigrant student village Eibim for three months, while awaiting caravans somewhere, and the students would have temporarily relocated to apartment blocs five minutes away from their college, and received extra financial compensation for their trouble), he replied that it was "still being discussed". Meanwhile, the Moshav Katif people are living in despicable conditions in the King Saul Hotel in Ashkelon.

Beilski said that the JA, together with the JDC and the PM's office, were working to find long term solutions for the evicted in various areas, but that they couldn't accommodate them "if they wanted to live in Raanana." He was politely reminded that none of the evictees had expressed a desire to live "in Raanana", only to stay together as communities.

HEBREW UNIVERSITY MINI-CONFERENCE ON THE DISENGAGEMENT

In what appears to be an attempt to put an academic spin on the Disengagement, the Hebrew University held a mini-conference at which Dr. Arnon Golan lectured on "The Changing of Borders and Exchanging of Populations in the First Half of the Twentieth Century." He spoke about the exchange of populations between the Greeks and the Turks, "even though it may have caused some distress at the time", that was something 'bad' whose outcome was 'good'. He did not relate to the fact that the Disengagement was a one-sided "exchange".

Following him, Dr. Gabi Golan, who works for the Prime Minister's office but who was at the conference in an academic role, spoke on "The Community Relocating in the Framework of the Disengagement Plan: The Government Intention as opposed to Independent Solutions." He gave a rundown on where some of the disengaged were presently relocating, including referring to Palmahim as the future location for the community of Elei Sinai, who are still in a tent camp at the crossroads of Yad Mordecai, because the government has not agreed to let them move to Palmahim. Golan said it was in the works; however, a woman interviewed the next day from Elei Sinai insisted that the government was still not forthcoming.

There were comments exchanged between Golan and the conference moderator, Professor Eran Feitelson, about the fact that some of the evictees were going to out of the way places such as Lachish and the Negev, whereas some were going to places whose "real estate value" was higher (referring, supposedly, to the Palmahim area). Anlyasis: Like the comment by Zeev Bielski about "Raanana", it appears that there is a subtle campaign to present some of the uprooted's housing requests as if what interests them is expensive real estate, the five years of their withstanding mortar fire without leaving Gaza notwithstanding.

MEDIA

After a long silence on the part of the media, in the last few weeks there has been somewhat of an awakening to the plight of the evicted. There have been several items on the news and feature programs on both Channels One and Two, and Channel Ten featured a comprehensive program on the plight of the youth, including stories about girls suffering emotional stress, and some boys who have fallen into the drug scene. The program also highlighted, through the eyes of the reporter, the frustration at being sent from office to office, from one official to another, in an attempt to receive answers.

In what seemed like an attempt to stem a flow of empathetic reporting, Maariv published an article this week which was an interview with one man, formerly of Nisanit, who complained that the evictees are "wasting their compensation", quoting sensationalist stories about people buying expensive jeeps, "trackterons" for their children, and gambling in Bulgaria. The situation is described by an unnamed source in the Disengagement Authority as a "catastrophe", and he says that the Authority is "very worried", and that the evictees will not have money left to buy homes at the end of two years, and will end up staying in Nitzan, which is meant to be temporary.

There was no reaction brought from others in Nisanit in the article, but Nahum Hadad, interviewed by the Center (see also under Unemployment, above), says in reaction to the Maariv article, "There are exceptions, of course, but most people are behaving logically. It is very far from a 'catastrophe'. There are people who are not working, and who have received no compensation. Yesterday I met some [evictees] renting in Ashkelon. They certainly aren't buying 'trackterons', rather they are living off of their compensation to buy food. It's true that Nitzan is temporary, but what will they do for two years with no work? These are people who were always giving, who established their own interest-free loan funds to help others (g'machim), and most of them have received no compensation. Some of those who are not working may be climbing the four walls in their small caravan. We even have to travel 15 kilometers to the closest place to buy bread and milk."

BAR MITZVA FOR 100 BOYS

Rav Yosef Elnekave of Neve Dekalim, the regional rabbi of Gush Katif, organized a bar mitzva for 100 boys in Jerusalem this week, with the help of private donations. (A later event will follow for the girls.) It was filmed and reported on Channel One news. All the boys had been evicted from their homes during the Disengagement and many of them are now in separate schools. The boys gathered eagerly around the tables, meeting their friends from whom they had been cut off. MK Rav Beni Elon, was also present and brought his blessings. No other politician showed up.

100 Days Since The Expulsion, And There Is Still No Solution For The True Zionist Pioneers Who Settled Gush Katif!"
Distributed by Women in Green (www.WomeninGreen.org)
IMRA (imra@netvision.net.il)
November 30, 2005

• 100 days later: 426 Families still living in hotels and their possessions are held in an army base. Uprooted in one week, abandoned already for 3 months

• approx.1700 families lost their homes this past summer

• about 10,000 people were ripped out of their homes and lives in seven days

• 100 days have elapsed since the forceful relocation

• 2200 people are currently unemployed

• 50% of the 'caravillas' promised by the Sel"a Authority are still not ready

• 65% of the uprooted remain in "immediate solution" quarters intended for the first week only

• 105 families presently live in tents

• dozens of youth have yet to find suitable educational solutions

• approximately 700 families live in various temporary quarters such as caravillas, caravans and other temporary structures

• size of a caravilla is between 60 to 120 square meters. (646 sq. ft. to 130 sq. feet)

• some families with 12 members are housed in a single caravilla

• $500 is the average rental fee for a caravilla

• caravillas can hold, at best, up to 50% of the family's belongings

• 24 containers holding entire family possessions have totally disappeared

• 4 homes were totally destroyed together with the house contents

• the majority of the families are not permitted access to their storage containers and have to buy new basic supplies to the amount of tens of thousands of shekels

• over the summer some expensive furniture was irreparably damaged by the extreme temperatures without proper storage conditions.

• more than 300 agricultural farms were wiped off the face of the earth

• only 20 have been relocated

• 0 residents received the promised severance pay

• merely 13% were deemed eligible to receive a temporary advance of living allowance.

• families that were living in rented homes in Gush Katif/Northern Shomron, according to the expulsion-reparation law are NOT eligible for any monetary assistance

• Singles living in the expelled areas are not eligible for any reparations

• about 600 families are today living in hotel rooms and educational institutions

• the hotel dwellers are not entitled to basic rights like hosting guests in their rooms, internet access, telephone use...

• 3 washing machines are available for the use of the Moshav Katif people and 3 washing machines are allocated for Netzer Chazani people (several hundred people!)

• 2 telephone lines on average available for the use of the refugees in the various hotels. At some hotel no personal calls are allowed at all

• 2 parents + 3 children are housed in a single room in many of the hotels

• 35% of the evacuees are still living in hotels

• hundreds of children above age 7 have started wetting their beds (nearly 45% of all children)

• many heart attacks have occurred as a result of the expulsion crisis

• many suicide attempts as a result of the disengagement

• 4 girls between ages 16-19 are in a locked hospital ward because of their extreme emotional state

• 10 youth are in clinical depression and do not leave their rooms

• thousands of children who returned to the classrooms have dramatically dropped their grades

• many families are still charged to pay back mortgages on their non-existent houses

• Homesh expellees have been billed by the electric company for cutting off the electricity

• Only within the past two weeks has the disengagement authority been willing to give recognition to communities rather than to individuals

• about 400 families have gone off on their own, spread throughout the country, cut off from their communities and their support system

• Neveh Dekalim alone has been forced to split up into 13 different locations around the country against their explicit request to remain together, long before the expulsion.

• Evacuation of the Northern Shomron communities allows for a territorial contiguity of the Arabs from Schem (Nablus) through to Jenin, a distance of tens of kilometers.

• 28% of Israel's land has, in effect, been abandoned by her citizens

• 3000 coats intended for the evacuees were stolen from the warehouses.

• Ministry of Education does not subsidize the temporary schools that have been established around the country

• Students who missed the summer exams are being barred from taking make-up exams.

• 75% of the Expellees are still without jobs

• 0 refugees have been moved of their own free will

• 25 thriving and flourishing communities have been totally wiped out

• 38 bodies were removed from their graves. Their families had to go through the trauma of reburial and sitting Shiva AGAIN

• Synagogues were destroyed

• ten thousand citizens are thrown out of their homes, without their possessions, ignored totally by the government

• There has been NOT one solution for any single citizen!!!

Swapping Selah Stories
Rachel Saperstein (ruchimo@netvision.net.il)
December 11, 2005.

Dan and Aviva are refugees from Gush Katif. Both are devoutly religious, sensitive, quiet-spoken people. They lived down our block. Dan is studying to be a rabbi. Aviva is an assistant kindergarten teacher. When we arrived in Neve Dekalim they were expecting their second child, a daughter, and then we welcomed their third, a son. Today SELAH, the Disengagement Authority, is demanding a DNA test from the family to prove the children really are theirs. The couple must cover the cost of this expensive test. Dan and Aviva are from Ethiopia.

But let's not say that prejudice is the reason for SELAH's ludicrous request. Some Sephardi families are being put through the same shameful process. We can be 'proud' that SELAH is equally malevolent to all Gush Katif refugees.

Debbie must prove that each of her six children went to school in Neve Dekalim uninterrupted to receive compensation for each of them.

The T's are in a bind. Their children were with them during the three years they served in Mexico as emissaries of the government of Israel. Their children might not receive compensation for their years abroad.

The K's have twelve children. First expelled from Yamit, they served as Chabad representatives to Gush Katif. They have been shot at and suffered injuries from rocket attacks in Neve Dekalim. Outspoken critics of the expulsion, they have been told they have no rights as they rented their tiny home privately. From Chabad.

The G's owned their home but their son, recently married, had rented privately. They have a right to a caravilla, but their son -- born and raised and living in Neve Dekalim all his life -- has no rights.

The SELAH Authority states that only homeowners and renters of public housing have the right to rent a caravilla for the princely sum of US$450 per month from the government of Israel. Rent money after fifteen months is to be deducted from the compensation. All families must agree to rent for two years or they will lose the IS 15000 (app. US $3000) deposit required on signing and receiving a key.

"We found that our special Sabbath dishes were broken, as well as our crystal glasses, when we opened the boxes that had been stored in the container" said L. "How do we replace the sets we've had since our marriage?" The L's are in their seventies. "To think we have to unpack, rebuild our home, then pack again and move in two or three years. We had not expected to spend our retirement years with this uncertainty."

One family must receive affidavits from their son's four former Yeshiva dormitory roommates, to prove he actually attended. Said the M's, "We don't even know where the boys live. They were from America. Our son has lost his right to compensation."

Moshe and I are waiting for the keys to our caravilla. Every time we supply the demanded documentation a whole new list of "essential documents" is demanded. All are available to SELAH on computer, but that would make life too easy for us. Yet we are determined to persevere. SELAH representatives call and ask us what's happening. We explain. The documents keep piling up, the file grows thicker -- still no key, no monetary advance, no compensation.

Lest you think malevolent bureaucracy is limited to SELAH, we have been informed by our former home insurers that as we ceased payment of premiums after our home was destroyed, we have to pay penalties eight times the amount of the unpaid premium. If we don't pay within ten days a collection agency will take our property equal in value to what they claim we owe them. Moshe expects they will take his false teeth.

"No Answers for Gush Katif Evictees"
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=94805
December 14, 2005

(IsraelNN.com) Hundreds of families from Gush Katif are still in hotels, months after they were evicted from their homes. This unsettled existence has caused untold suffering, especially among the children.

Motti Shomron, leader of the former residents of Neve Dekalim, who is currently in the Gold Hotel in Jerusalem, told Arutz Sheva correspondent Moshe Priel about his meeting this week with Yehonatan Bassi [Bassi is head of the Disengagement Authority]. "I told Bassi about the immediate need for a communal solution for the entire group of Neve Dekalim residents. However, I received impervious, complex and difficult answers that only a legal adviser could probably respond to, such as that a person who lived in private rented accommodation for 15 years is not entitled to a communal solution." Shomron added that the prime minister had promised a "communal solution for everyone. Yet, unfortunately this has stayed within the realm of the sentence, 'the fate of Netzarim is like that of Tel Aviv.'"

"O' Precious Key"
by Rachel Saperstein, (ruchimo@netvision.net.il)
Neve Dekalim/Jerusalem Gold Hotel
December 20, 2005

We are still in the hotel room that we call home. Little by little families are moving out to join their friends and neighbors from Neve Dekalim already living in the Nitzan trailer camp. We watch the hotel trolley carrying out the last of the valises, the plastic drawers on wheels, the children's clothing thrown into supermarket bags, the Shabbat dresses still on hangars. The contents of the ship container have already been unpacked and placed, a bit askew, into the small trailers. Larger pieces are stored in a backyard shed. The cars are loaded, the children pile in, and we wave goodbye.

The hotel dining room seems emptier, the lobby has less youngsters running about. The corridors are quieter, the welcome signs on the doors are almost gone. The elevators arrive more quickly. Only the families whose trailers are still not in place, and those going to the soon-to-be-built trailer park at Kibbutz Ein Tzurim, remain in the hotel. And some are like us.

Our trailer, with our name pasted on the door, stands waiting for us. We, as many others, do not get the call: "Come and get your key!" Each day our friends greet us in the dining room with "What's with you? Did you get your key yet?" We shake our heads, "No. No key. I guess we're not loved by the Selah Expulsion Authority."

No precious key. No advance on our compensation. No word. No word at all.

I spoke at a "Root and Branch Society" meeting last Thursday. The room at the Israel Center in Jerusalem was filled and many good friends from every period in our lives were in the audience. My topic: "On Being a Displaced Person". Towards the end I asked the people, "How many of you would like to live in a trailer?" No show of hands.

So how does a government manage to make a people, a people who owned large, spacious homes, grateful to receive the precious key to a trailer? To look forward with relief that they will soon be residents of a large trailer park? That if refused a key they will beg and plead in order to receive that o' so precious key.

The government has played with our heads and emotions. They have demanded an endless number of documents before letting us receive this cardboard housing. And we rush to comply. They have separated families by disallowing a child from renting a trailer even if the child was born and raised in a Gush Katif community but as a married person had lived in a privately rented home. Only those who had owned or rented from public housing authorities are entitled to a key.

They arbitrarily call people to come and get the key while leaving others in limbo even if their trailer is ready for occupancy, wondering, always wondering, if you will actually be allowed to receive a key. The grand smiles on the faces of a family leaving for the trailer camp leaves the others with a sense of despair. "Perhaps I'll be left out, never to be with the community again. But why? What did I do? I thought I handed in my phone bills, electric bills, water bills, bank receipts, proof of residency, payments of municipal taxes, our ID cards, our children's report cards. What could I have left out?"

Harassment, psychological warfare, playing with our heads. The communities want to live together. This was our cry to the government. Please do not disperse us. We are people who lived through five years of bombardment, of seeing our friends killed or injured by Arab terrorists. We experienced the trauma of expulsion from our homes and communities. We've watched our synagogues burn, our farms destroyed, our businesses in ruins, our children scattered in makeshift schools around the country. Nowhere in the history of modern Israel has this happened to the Jewish people.

All we ask is that we remain together.

And so the government built cheap housing, a trailer with a red roof, and we are grateful for this temporary solution. We are o' so grateful for that o' so precious key.

[Editor's note: On January 2, 2006, the Sapersteins actually received the key to their brand-new caravan, which had cost the Government $100,000. However, the doors were warped and didn't open, the sprinkler where located would flood the air-conditioner and the ceiling already had water damage. They were informed they could not move in until these are fixed.]

_________________________End of Story___________________________

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