Excerpts:
“The government’s decision to work with evacuees as individuals rather than as communities has been widely criticized by several Israeli non-governmental organizations, including the Israel Legal Forum, the social service agency Lema’an Achai, and Jewish Family Services, Israel. According to a report compiled by Arlene Kushner for the Israel Resource News Agency, The Disengagement Authority, SELA, insisted on negotiating compensation only with individual families and refused requests from leaders of Gush Katif communities to allow the Israel Legal Forum to negotiate on their behalf as communities.”
“In the weeks since the disengagement, it has been widely acknowledged that the Israeli government was ill-prepared for moving the more than 8,000 residents of Gush Katif. A shortage of hotel rooms led to cases in which whole families with several children were moved into one hotel room, with mattresses on the floor, Kushner writes.”
“No government-provided social workers were available to assist with the trauma of relocation. As a result, distraught, angry, confused and depressed evacuees were left to struggle with pragmatic issues such as where to do laundry and how to access their belongings, which the government put into storage for them.”
“To put the evacuation in perspective, Zinar compares it with government plans to relocate a ‘safari zoo.’ ‘The animals are to be relocated over the course of five to eight YEARS,’ says Zinar. ‘But the government’s deportation of the citizens of Gush Katif took place in five to eight DAYS.’”