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Change Your Life! |
Jewish settlers dominated by security |
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September 23, 2000
NETZARIM, Gaza Strip, SEPT 22 (AP) - In this isolated Jewish settlement, a tiny dot in a Palestinian sea, traveling to schools and workplaces in Israel means signing up for an armored convoy that leaves every 40 minutes. When times get especially tense, settlers are bundled into bulletproof trucks once used to transport Israeli soldiers in and out of southern Lebanon, the scene of an 18-year guerrilla war. In the event of a peace treaty, Netzarim's 60 families will likely be evicted, along with thousands of other settlers living in tiny outlying communities. Israel has led the Palestinians to believe that in establishing their state, they can expect territorial continuity - an impossibility if small enclaves remain. For the increasingly beleaguered Netzarim settlers, the army has become a lifeline. "Life has become hard here. We feel our lives depend on cooperation with the army," said Netzarim's Shlomit Ziv, a 30-year-old schoolteacher. "Without cooperation with the army, we can't live." Some 6,500 settlers live in uneasy proximity to more than 1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, a sandy sliver of land wedged between the southern coast of Israel and Egypt's Sinai peninsula. The Palestinians hope to make the Gaza Strip part of a future state, along with the West Bank. Most of Gaza is controlled by the Palestinians, but the army patrols several pockets, including 16 Jewish settlements and the roads that connect them to Israel. Netzarim is ringed by barbed wire fences, army barracks and parked armored personnel carriers. Beyond the borders of the settlements, there are lemon groves, Palestinian villages, and a junction where clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian youths have turned into gunbattles. On Monday, 100 Palestinian teen-agers marched toward the gate of Netzarim, burned tires and hurled stones at the fence. Israeli troops fired rubber-coated steel pellets, injuring five demonstrators. Palestinian police tried to push back the young protesters, chasing some through the nearby fields. The army has said it is prepared to cope with any contingency, including Palestinian civilians converging en masse on an isolated settlement. Maj. Gen. Yom Tov Samia, who commands Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip, said settlers would be called on as the first line of defense should their communities be attacked. Samia said these so called "alert teams" gather for special training every year, but that settlers were called in for additional exercises this year because of a growing sense of uncertainty. The Palestinians have said they would declare a state unilaterally if peace talks with Israel collapse. "We increased the training because we see the situation we may be put into, (and) it could be that we will need to use this system," Samia told reporters during an army tour of Gaza on Wednesday. Despite the anxiety, security precautions and 30 meter (yard) high guard tower that pierces its skyline, Netzarim is still very much home for Ziv, who believes it is the biblical birthright of the Jewish people to live in the Gaza Strip. "I teach my children there are more important things than comfort," said Ziv, a mother of six who, in accordance with the custom of Orthodox Judaism, tucks her dark hair under a headscarf. "I live by the Torah ... part of that is living in the Land of Israel, even if it is hard." Because of the new security precautions in which settlers can only travel on Israeli army-controlled roads, it takes the children of Netzarim 1 1/2 hours to reach school and their parents twice as long to reach their jobs in Israel. Ziv said some of her neighbors wear bulletproof vests as they drive their own cars out of the settlement, after putting their children into the armored jeeps of the army convoy. The petite Ziv's tone grew more firm as she gave voice to her conviction that raising her family at Netzarim was the right choice. She said she and her neighbors talk of building houses, not evacuating them. With the help of a government loan she and her husband recently moved with their children into a larger home at the settlement. "I spent a lot of time building a large home. That means I am going to stay," Ziv said. "We talk about building another house, not about what is happening on the outside." |