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(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) The Gush Katif Residents Committee has released its latest report on the state of the families expelled during the Disengagement of 2005. The starkest finding: 85% of the expellees are still, 28 months later, living in temporary quarters. Additional numbers: 8,800 people in 1,667 families were thrown out of their homes in Gush Katif and lived for months in hotels, tents, and dormitories. 85% of them still live in communal frameworks in temporary pre-fab sites. A large number of those who do not currently live with their former neighbors plan to do so in the future when their community...

(IsraelNN.com) With every crash of a Kassam rocket in the Negev, increasingly more voices are calling for a return to Gaza - for different reasons. Respected journalists from Yediot Acharonot and Haaretz have written that re-occupying Gaza is the only solution - lending an air of "political correctness" to the simultaneous ideological call by settlement leaders and Gush Katif expellees to return to Gush Katif. The reasons advanced for reoccupation by the various elements are, to be sure, not identical. Military affairs correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai, writing for Yediot Acharonot last week (May 17), explained that it is based solely on...

The open wound of Gush Katif By Nadav Shragai Last Friday when Makor Rishon's photographer, Miri Tzahi, saw the photo of First Lieutenant Amihai Merhavia, who was killed in the battle of Bint Jbail, it jogged something in her journalist's memory. She thought she had seen this face before. Tzahi, who is about publish the album, "Katif - Nine days in Av," featuring hundreds of photos of the "days of the expulsion," searched through her computer archive and found a series of photos from around four years ago, showing Merhavia during the violent evacuation of Havat Gilad (Gilad Farm) in...

Three incidents of looting have been reported in the village of Pe'at Sadeh in southern Gush Katif. Two soldiers were caught looting an air conditioner from a home in the town of Pe’at Sadeh in Gush Katif on Tuesday. The soldiers were caught by a female soldier who reported the incident to her superiors. The two soldiers have admitted to looting the home. The IDF Judge Advocate General has ordered an investigation into the incident. Two other incidents of looting have been reported in Pe’at Sadeh. On Sunday, two soldiers were caught attempting to steal appliances left behind by residents...

A woman in Morag threatens to employ violence against herself and her children -and Noga Cohen of Kfar Darom, three of whose children lost their legs in a terrorist attack, attempted to mollify her. The woman, named Ofrah, a 17-year veteran of Morag in southern Gush Katif, screamed at an army officer who arrived to deliver the expulsion notices: "By what right do you come and throw me out of my house? Did I hurt anyone? Did I do something? You're coming in the name of the law, in the name of the government - I'd like to see Ariel...

SPECIAL ICEJ RELEASE ON DISENGAGEMENT FOR RELEASE - 21 JULY 2005 FOR ZION'S SAKE WE WILL NOT KEEP SILENT "For behold, in those days and at that time, When I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, And bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; And I will enter into judgment with them there On account of My people, My heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations; They have also divided up My land. They have cast lots for My people, Have given a boy as payment for a harlot,...

Civil war is national suicide AITON BIRNBAUM, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 29, 2005 As disengagement draws closer, some fear that growing tensions may erupt into armed conflict. Worst-case scenarios of disengagement, security chiefs warn, include assassination of the prime minister or other leaders and violent civil unrest . The more we positively discount such possibilities, the more likely it is that we are in denial. Civil war could threaten our very existence – the prospect of which, while naturally engendering avoidance of the topic, also demands overcoming anxiety in order to perform a realistic risk assessment. Clinicians evaluating suicidal clients...

JERUSALEM – It has spread like a fierce contagion. People wear it. Billboards shout it. Kids distribute in on the streets. See it dangling from cars, buses, baby carriages, backpacks. It's the color orange and it is everywhere. As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate the Jewish communities of Gaza and parts of the West Bank on Aug. 15 draws closer, grassroots anti-withdrawal campaigns have geared up exponentially. With the color theme of orange, signifying the citrus groves that thrive in Jewish Gaza, the plan is to have as many Israelis as possible drape the country in orange to...

It would be few contemporary parents who are not familiar with the animated children's film, "Finding Nemo." In the oceanic fantasy story, the young Nemo, a clown fish, is inadvertently captured in a fish collector's diving net and his father, Marlin, accompanied by an absent-minded Angel-fish friend named Dory, sets out on a quest to find his abducted son. At one point in their travels and trials, they are waylaid by a massive brute of a toothy Great White shark named Bruce and forcibly invited to a “get together.” Steered by the fins of the massive beast, they soon find...

MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) today told tens of thousands supporters of Jewish life in Gaza to prepare for a "civil rebellion" to block the proposed evacuation of Jews from 21 Gaza communities. Organizers of the massive rally said 80,000 people came, while police, who usually minimize crowd estimates at right wing protests, said 50,000 people arrived. Earlier this week thousands of others visited Gush Katif, in southern Gaza, and thousands more stayed away because of fears of a rerun of last year's mammoth Independence Day traffic jam that choked roads leading to Gush Katif, turning them into the nation's...

Gush Katif and parts of Shomron, Israel, are slated for a unilateral withdrawal by the Israeli government within a few months. Not only are they removing military protection, the government also claims to expel all the Jews living in those areas, at least 8500 souls in Gush Katif (Gaza.) I toured those areas a few days ago, visiting 6 towns in Gush Katif and 2 in Shomron, all condemned by their government. These are built-up, well-established towns, with over 1000 acres of hothouses, many factories, and spacious modern houses (not huts as some imply.) I have assembled a photo essay...

A group of Jews from America arrived in Israel today to show their support for the struggle of the Jews of Gaza and the northern Shomron against the plan to expel them from their homes. 15 members of the group, which is being led by New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind and includes two State Supreme Court Judges, were detained upon reaching passport control, according to Ruth Lieberman, one of the people waiting to greet the group in Ben Gurion International Airport. “The police questioned them and told them that ‘the Gaza Strip is a closed military zone,’” Lieberman said....