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Gush Katif (also Gush Katiff, Hebrew: גוש קטיף, English: "Harvest Belt") was a bloc of 16 Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza Strip.

Its 8,000 residents were forced to leave the area and their homes were demolished in August 2005, as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan to remove the Israeli presence from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank.

Geography

Gush Katif was located in the south-west edge of the Gaza Strip, along the Mediterranean Sea coast. The main road between Gush Katif and the outside of the Gaza Strip ("Israel proper") was through the Kissufim junction.

The main road which connects Gush Katif with Kfar Darom and Netzarim (known as "Tencher Road") strays from south-to-north.

In the years before the withdrawal, Jewish travel on the Tencher Road to Netzarim was forbidden, and Netzarim was isolated as an enclave accessed only through the Karni crossing and the Sa'ad junction.

Demographics

It had about 8,000 residents, many of them religious Orthodox Jews (see Religious Zionism and Mafdal) and the rest non-religious Jews, often referred to as secular, though many practiced Judaism to some extent. The area also included several hundred Muslim families, mostly of Bedouin heritage, with whom the Jewish residents had peaceful relations (see Israeli settlement/Gaza Strip Israeli Population Statistics).

Controversy

Gush Katif was located in the Gaza Strip, part of the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 during the Six Day War.

Towards the end, the settlements in the Gaza Strip, especially Gush Katif, were not unanimously accepted in Israeli public opinion, and many had questioned in public the benefit of settling Jewish population in the region. While most communities blossomed to zero capacity, others were sparsely populated, with some houses not completed. Late ex-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, referring to this, insisted that Netzarim was not a "real" settlement but rather a "ghost" settlement, and stated that "If Netzarim is a settlement, I am a Kugellager" (ball-bearing). According to the Foundation for Middle East Peace, the population of Netzarim stood at 297 in 1999 and had grown to 521 by 2004.

Many of those who opposed the Gaza withdrawal plan viewed the Gush Katif settlements as belonging to the Land of Israel, and asserted that they enhance Israel's security by preventing heavy bombardment of long-range Katyusha rockets on Israeli towns such as Sderot and Ashkelon. Originally though, all settlements in Gush Katif had been supported, or even founded, by governments ruled by the Israeli Labour Party. While Gush Katif had never been officially annexed by Israel, for the most part of its 38 year history, all Israeli governments viewed it as a strategic asset against a future Egyptian assault as well as a way to excuse a continued heavy military presence in the area to observe the Palestinian militants and population.

At the end of 2004, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon deviated from his recent election platform and announced plans to evacuate the Jewish residents of Gush Katif, despite significant opposition from within his own Likud party and its coalition partner, the NRP (Mafdal). See main article: Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2004.

Economy

In the Katif Bloc’s unique hothouses, a uniquely developed advanced technology was used to grow bug-free leafy vegetables and herbs answering to the strictest health, aesthetic and religious requirements. Most of the chemical-free organic agricultural products were exported to Europe. In addition, the community of Atzmona had Israel’s largest plant nursery, and with 800 cows, the Katif dairy was the second largest in Israel.

The total sum of exports from the greenhouses of Gush Katif, which were owned by 200 farmers, came to $200,000,000 per year and made up 15% of the agricultural exports of the State of Israel.

The combined assets in Gush Katif were estimated at $23 billion.

Of Israel’s total exports abroad, Gush Katif exported:

  • 95% of bug-free lettuce and greens
  • 70% of organic vegetables
  • 60% of cherry tomatoes
  • 60% of geraniums to Europe.

The Economic Cooperation Foundation, which is funded by the European Union, agreed to purchase the hothouses for $14 million and transfer ownership to the Palestinian Authority, so that the 4,000 Palestinians employed to work in them could keep their jobs. Former head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, contributed $500,000 of his own money to the project.

When the IDF left Gaza, thousands of Palestinians looted the area, and 800 of the 4,000 hothouses were left unusable. ***

Terror attacks on Gush Katif

Although the Gush Katif settlements and the roads leading to it were guarded by the Israeli Army, settlers were still vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada, Gush Katif settlements saw thousands of attacks by Palestinian terrorists. More than 6000 mortar shells and Qassam rockets were launched over Gush Katif, causing mostly property and psychological damage with very few fatalities; a fact which the residents still attribute to God's supervision (i.e., a miracle). Most of the ground terror attacks were infiltrations and shooting attacks. In one of these attacks, three Palestinian children, aged 14, 12 and 8–10, infiltrated a settlement and tried to stab unarmed Jewish children. There were also attempts to infiltrate by sea.

Palestinian attacks on Israeli vehicles traveling on the Kissufim road were very common. In one of these attacks, in May 2004, Palestinian terrorists killed Tali Hatuel, who was eight months pregnant, and her four daughters, aged two to 11. In another, a schoolbus was bombed, leaving two dead and several maimed children.

Many of the ground attacks on Gush Katif were thwarted by the IDF.

Withdrawal

On August 13, 2005, the Gush Katif region was closed to non-residents, in keeping with the plan to evacuate the Katif bloc. Though effectively breaking the Disengagement law most residents viewed as highly immoral and illegitimate, most settlers did not voluntarily leave their homes or even pack in preparation of the eviction. On August 15, 2005, the forcible evacuation of the Gush Katif settlements began. On August 22, 2005, the residents of the last settlement, Netzarim, were evicted. In essence, many residents returned to pack the contents of their homes and the Israeli government began the destruction of all residential buildings. On September 12, 2005, the Israeli Army withdrew from each settlement up to the Kissufim crossing. All public buildings (schools, libraries, community centres, office buildings) as well as industrial buildings, factories and hothouses which could not be taken apart were left intact. There had been much controversy in Israel whether to destroy the synagogues and yeshivas and the government finally caved in to public opinion by agreeing to leave these standing as well.

When the IDF left on September 12, thousands of Palestinians took part in the ransacking and destruction of the synagogues.

Settlements in Gush Katif

The Gush Katif settlements were concentrated in one block in the south-west edge of the Gaza Strip and were surrounded by fence.

In addition to Gush Katif, there were three Israeli settlements at the north edge of the Gaza Strip (Ele Sinay, Dugit and Nisanit), and two more near its center (Netzarim and Kfar Darom).

See also

Notes

  1. Foundation for Middle East Peace, "Settlements in the Gaza Strip".

Further reading

Former Israeli settlements

Gusch Katif | Gush Katif | גוש קטיף | Gush Katif

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Gush Katif".

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