Twenty years after Disengagement, Gush Katif still haunts our memories

Photos: Avi Ohayon, Yossi Zamir, Mark Neiman, Moshe Milner, Amos Ben Gershom – GPO, Michael Giladi, Yossi Zamir – Flash 90, Kevin Fryer – AP, Daniel Ventura, Michael Jacobson, IDF Spokesman

It’s been 20 years since the destruction of the communities of Gush Katif, a move that even one-time proponents admit set the stage for the Hamas takeover of the Gaza coast. While families then still believed there could be a reprieve from the decree up to the last minute, they had no choice but to watch as three decades of life were bulldozed to rubble. How did they, and the nation, move on with their lives?

Did People Really Believe It Would Happen?

AS tens of thousands of soldiers and police converged on the red-roofed, sun-drenched communities of Gush Katif just after Tishah B’Av in August 2005, families barricaded in their homes were carried out onto waiting buses — while a large swath of the nation looked on in horror. The bulldozers followed, obliterating the 21 thriving settlements on the Gaza coast that had miraculously bloomed on the sand dunes for nearly three decades.

In addition to the unfathomable national loss in both property and security following the Disengagement Plan of then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the personal trauma was devastating as well. The government promised that “every family would have a solution,” but the night they lost their homes, hundreds of families with many, many children were either dumped on street corners, shuttled from one hotel to another because contracts hadn’t been signed, or dropped off in front of dormitories that had been given a half-hour notice. And it took over a decade for many of those families to finally see permanent housing solutions in new communities in the center of the country.

For over a year, dozens of families were living in cramped motel rooms, which were supposed to be just a week-long temporary station. The more fortunate ones were set up in a “caravilla park,” rows of prefab caravans set up on what had been a watermelon field outside Ashkelon. Whatever initial compensation was allotted for their large, beachfront homes and thriving businesses was quickly depleted, used for daily living expenses, the caravilla’s forced $450 monthly rental, and even continued mortgage payments on their destroyed homes.

Meanwhile, the very government that ousted the communities didn’t take into account that, in addition to national devastation, every family suffered a major, life-shaking trauma — removal from their homes, financial ruin, and intense feelings of betrayal.

“Too late to start over” was the distressing slogan for many of the middle-aged men who’d lost the livelihood they’d created in their once-thriving communities. Over 2,000 successful individuals had been reduced to indigent, idle dependents. Some of them even resorted to begging. Jerusalem residents might remember a middle-aged man in a business suit stationed on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall who was in charge of a daily charity collection.

While private homes were bulldozed to rubble, many public buildings, and even private businesses, were transferred to the Palestinian Authority, who was put in charge of governing the Arab population until they were ousted in favor of Hamas in 2007. And all the innovative infrastructure that made Gush Katif an international leader in agriculture was transferred to the local population — who, instead of using their free gifts to boost their economy and make their lives better, didn’t waste any time tearing down the structures and repurposing the parts to make pipe bombs and other ammunition, while using international funds that had poured in to create the foundations of a massive terror tunnel network.