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Lt. Col. (res.) Avi Farhan, who was evicted from Yamit and Gush Katif, on Thursday called on the government to provide the appropriate Zionist response to terrorism and to reestablish the communities of Dugit, Elei Sinai and Nisanit on the northern tip of Gaza. The three communities were evicted in 2005 as part of the “Disengagement” from Gaza. In a conversation with Arutz Sheva, Farhan pointed out that Gazan Arabs do not live on the ruins of these three communities. "There are only ruins there, and they serve as a nest for terrorism. These communities should be rebuilt just as...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the nation and answered reporters' questions Sunday evening during the prime time newscasts after 8:00 p.m., and spelled out relatively modest aims for Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, which completes its 13th day Sunday night. In response to a question, Netanyahu said that Israel has embarked on a gradual process of undoing the harm done by the 2005 unilateral Gaza withdrawal known as the Disengagement, which ended up allowing Hamas to take over Gaza. At the time, he noted, he had warned that the vacuum left behind by Israel would be filled by Hamas, which...

Due to the initiative of Coalition Chairman Yariv Levin the Knesset will mark Gush Katif Day every year starting Tuesday, "To always remember to never repeat the mistake of the Disengagement, and to keep in mind the fact that we must take responsibility for the many families still waiting to be resettled in permanent housing...

165 families who reside in the caravan site in Nitzan were given urgent evacuation orders to leave their homes, Ma'ariv reported on Tuesday. According to the report, the families, who took up residence in Nitzan after being kicked out of their homes in Gush Katif, were ordered to pay rent to the government on the caravans but many were unable to or simply refused, citing poor living conditions and a feeling of frustration towards the government over the realty that seven years after the forced "Disengagement" from Gaza many of their lives are still in fragments. Officials in the Tenufa...

The eviction of Israeli families from Migron on Sunday brought back painful memories for many of the 9,000 citizens expelled from Gush Katif in 2005. Now Katif expellees are asking the government for just one thing: leave the synagogue standing. “We, who seven years ago felt on our flesh the Israeli government’s decision to uproot our lives and our towns in Gush Katif, are pained and shocked today at the fact that the Israeli government is repeating the terrible mistake, and crime, of demolishing settlement and uprooting homes in Migron,” wrote Eliezer Orbach of the Gush Katif Residents’ Committee, in...

Forty caravans (converted mobile homes) will be brought to Beit El in the coming days, in preparation for the planned demolition of the Givat HaUlpana neighborhood and the eviction of its residents from their homes. The move is in contravention of the Prime Minister's commitment to freeze all preparations for an eviction while efforts were being made to find other solutions to the problem. Arutz Sheva has learned that the caravans were intended for Jews in the community of Bnei Dekalim – who were uprooted from Gaza in the 2005 "Disengagement" and still have not found permanent residence. Instead, they...

In what many would say is a parallel to the “Wise Men of Chelm," Knesset Members in 2005 said it is “ridiculous” to think terrorists will hit Ashkelon after the exit from Gaza. Arutz Sheva now presents a video of an Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) television in 2009, when the IDF entered Gaza in the counterterrorist Cast Lead campaign against terroroists, aired a Channel Two program, in which Amit Segal viewed promising speeches in 2005 on behalf of the “Disengagement” program to exit Gaza. VIDEO

Hundreds of residents of Gush Katif marked on Wednesday the sixth anniversary of their expulsion from their homes, during the Sharon government’s 2005 disengagement plan from Gaza. The annual event marking the anniversary of the expulsion from Gush Katif took place, as it does each year, near the Kissufim crossing, which is the closest point to what was formerly the Jewish communities of Gush Katif. Video “Kissufim, which is right next to where we are, in English means yearning,” said Dror Vanunu, International Director of the Gush Katif Committee. “And the feeling is that all of us are yearning for...

The Cabinet voted Sunday to approve a 300 million shekel agreement that ends the claims for compensation by evacuees from Gush Katif and Northern Samaria. The government stated that the agreement "will allow for the completion of the evacuees' moves to permanent communities and their embarking on a new path. All community representatives, business owners and farmers in Gush Katif have signed the agreement." The issue of compensation between the Government and the evacuees has been simmering for six painful years, since the implementation of the "Disengagement Plan" in 2005. The "Disengagement" was the euphemistic name given to the process...

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon was at the Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem on Monday, where he opened the special events held by the museum to mark six years since the expulsion of the residents of Gush Katif as part of the 2005 disengagement plan. Ayalon was accompanied by MK Anastasia Michaeli and Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Masha Novikov. Ayalon said he was surprised and thrilled about the presence of the Gush Katif Museum in the heart of Jerusalem, something which he said gives the world a window into what happened in Gush Katif. He spoke about the importance and...

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.Albert EinsteinThe new government Commission of Inquiry to Examine the Treatment of the Evacuees of Gush Katif and Northern Shomron began its work this week. If you had just landed here from the moon and heard the name of the Commission, you would assume that some sort of natural disaster had occurred in Gush Katif and North Shomron that required the evacuation of its residents - and that the response of the emergency personnel...

JERUSALEM – In what some may view as a complete turning of the tables, several major Palestinian terrorist organizations this past weekend staged what they called military training exercises on the grounds of Gush Katif, the former slate of Jewish communities inside the Gaza Strip that were uprooted by Israel three years ago. The exercises were aimed at preparing for attacks against Israel, said terrorist leaders. "The old (Jewish) settlements gave the Palestinian resistance enough space to have big trainings. We never had this space and these possibilities when the Zionists were in Gaza," Abu Muhammad, a senior Gaza-based leader...

(IsraelNN.com) A left-wing kibbutz member, who had never seen a Yesha settlement until the day she came to destroy it, asks forgiveness of the people she expelled. "Three years without a home is much too long," she says. The soldier publicized her story, and request for forgiveness, in an interview with Yedidya Meir on the Kol Chai radio station. She had been an active member of a left-wing youth movement in her kibbutz, never having met a "settler" (Jewish resident of Judea, Samaria and Gaza), or been inside a Jewish town there, in her life. After enlisting in the army,...

(IsraelNN.com) Gazan Arabs who were employed by Israeli farmers in Gush Katif until the 2005 eviction of Jews from the region are seeking ways to sue their former employers for "wrongful dismissal" and other employee benefits. The uprooting of the vibrant Jewish communities and economy of Gush Katif during the Sharon Administration's "disengagement" from Gaza led to the instant unemployment of about 10,000 people who worked in agriculture and related industries, including 5,000 Arabs from the Palestinian Authority. As of June 2008, over 50 percent of former Gush Katif residents still find themselves unemployed. According to an Israel TV Channel...

Former Gaza farmers rallied on Sunday to demand that the government fully reimburse them for the land and money that they lost when they were evacuated from their homes two years ago. Saying the government has failed to keep promises to fully compensating them for the loss of their farms, hundreds of protesters gathered outside Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office in Jerusalem. Olmert, they said, should wake up and focus on his own people instead of the Palestinian terrorists. Some demanded his resignation. They called on the government to help them rebuild their homes and livelihoods. According to the May...

http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2006/dec/g5.htm Backs against the wall ... OK, I admit it: The writer of these lines loves Eretz Yisrael, the birthplace of the Jewish People, the Holy Land and the Promised Land, without any connection to security considerations. In his opinion, it is forbidden for any Jewish government to harm Eretz Yisrael, let alone to execute ethnic cleansing of its Jews, whatever the circumstances.

After relative period of calm Gaza's evacuees gear up to fight once again for permanent homes they claim they were promised Shmulik Hadad Published: 11.23.06, 00:23 Gush Katif evacuees living in the cara-villa site in Nitzan announced on Wednesday that they will renew their struggle after a period of relative calm. Renewing the fight is necessary, they said, given the bureaucratic foot-dragging over the permanent homes they had been promised. Yossi Noiman, a former resident of Neve Dekalim who represents the 400 families evacuated from the community, told Ynet that the families want to establish a new permanent community together....

U.S. Jewish Groups Refuse Aid to Gush Katif Refugees 12:51 Nov 10, '06 / 19 Cheshvan 5767 by Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily Mainstream American Jewish organizations largely have refused to aid the thousands of Jews evacuated last summer from the Gaza Strip. (Reprinted with permission from WorldNetDaily) Mainstream American Jewish organizations largely have refused to aid the thousands of Jews evacuated last summer from the Gaza Strip, the majority of whom, fifteen months later, are unemployed, and none of whom received permanent housing promised by the Israeli government, WND has learned. The former Gaza residents have appealed for help multiple times...

IsraelNN.com) A Haifa resident under siege by Hizbullah attacks and who ignored opponents to the government's expulsion of Gush Katif resident has written the expulsion victims and asked for forgiveness. In an open letter posted on a Gush Katif forum web site, Y. S. wrote, "I closed my business since the beginning of the battle and I don't know what will happen. I never thought that I, a Haifa resident for 30 years, would be a refugee in my own land. "During five years you coped with bombs, and I didn't care. Even when you came to visit me in...

A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME From: Moshe Saperstein, Neve Dekalim/Nitzan: A house is not a home. Not necessarily. And this house in Nitzan will never be our home. Though Rachel has worked her customary magic and turned a pigsty into a palace, this house cannot be our home. This house cannot be our home, not because it is a temporary residence. We are committed to living here for a minimum of two years, maximum of four. But few things are as permanent as those labeled temporary, and there is no way of knowing how long we will actually be...