Word: settlements
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Sunday was Tisha B'Av, a day of fasting when Jews remember the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. It was also the last day before the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip would be sealed off, and all residents would be expected to leave...
Deep in the heart of the Gaza Strip, the Hilburgs are pretending to have a normal day. Life in the Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Katif is out of the ordinary at the best of times, but this is the worst of times. Yet Bryna, 55, defiantly acts as if nothing has changed, washing the dishes, tidying the living room, settling down to write end-of-year reports on her speech-therapy students. Out in their nearby hothouses, her husband Sammy, 56, is resolutely prepping the sandy soil for the next vegetable crop. But their bleak eyes, full of anger...
Back then, the dunes staked out in Gaza for settlement were an empty tract. There were no Arab houses within view, no fences, no military bases, no sign the Jews were entering enemy territory. The 33 families who arrived in Netzer Hazani to occupy 33 small bungalows and work in 33 hothouses newly plunked down on the sand saw themselves as welcome pioneers who would make the desert bloom. They went to shop in Arab Khan Yunis, got haircuts from Palestinian barbers, drank coffee in Palestinian cafés, danced at Palestinian weddings. Although Sammy's view is harsher...
...gazes out over a sea of concrete. This is the village of Beit Hanoun, which merges with the massive refugee camp of Jabalya and, in turn, Gaza City itself. There is no break in the drab urban sprawl until our Twin Star chopper passes the dunes around the Israeli settlement of Netzarim...
...Further down the Gaza Strip, the light orange stripes of open land become wider. This is the settlement bloc called Gush Katif, where most of the 10,000 Israelis due for evacuation live. Gush Katif is surrounded by scrubby dunes, guarded by tanks...