Neve Dekalim

Neve Dekalim served as the urban center of Gush Katif, combining a religious residential community with administrative offices, educational institutions, shops, and industrial facilities.[1][4] Its regional functions included local council offices, health and religious services, a community center, and a regional library.[1] The settlement also housed the regional police station and the bloc’s shopping center, making it a destination for residents of the surrounding communities.[5]

The settlement stood in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, within the Gush Katif group of communities along the southern coastline.[6][7] Gush Katif was the largest concentration of Israeli settlements in Gaza, and its communities were predominantly religious and Jewish.[7] Neve Dekalim belonged to a regional economy in which agriculture was important, while also accommodating local industry and services.[8]

Neve Dekalim was established in the early 1980s and developed into Gush Katif’s largest settlement and urban center.[4][9] Jewish settlement in the broader Gush Katif bloc had begun in 1970.[7] Families moved to Neve Dekalim from across Israel and from abroad, and its housing stock included 467 occupied residential units in a report published in November 2005.[10]

The modern bloc arose in a region with a much older Jewish history. Jewish communities existed in Gaza in antiquity and the medieval period; Jews were forced to leave amid the 1929 riots, and Kfar Darom was established in 1946 before being abandoned during the War of Independence.[8]

Rachel Saperstein and her husband moved to Neve Dekalim after their three children had married; their home overlooked the sea, sand, and palm trees.[11] Following the beginning of Intifada attacks on Rosh Hashanah in 2000, visits from their friends and relatives outside Gaza diminished, deepening the family’s sense of isolation.[11] On February 18, 2002, her husband was severely injured in a sniper attack that killed a young mother and two young soldiers.[11] After his hospitalization, the couple returned home and received care from the Neve Dekalim community.[11]

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his intention to evacuate the Gaza settlements in 2003, and settlers campaigned against the decision.[4] The disengagement plan covered 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza and the military installations protecting them.[6] The army’s task included removing residents from their homes amid organized, vocal opposition; its stated approach was “sensitivity and determination.”[12] Some residents of the wider Gush Katif bloc had lived there for thirty years.[12]

Before the withdrawal, about 30 activist families moved into a small hotel in Neve Dekalim to reinforce opposition to evacuation.[13] Regional council head Avner Shimoni said these activists did not represent Gush Katif residents, while another settler leader argued that the group damaged the image of veteran residents opposing disengagement.[13] On June 30, 2005, authorities evacuated disengagement opponents from the hotel.[12]

The hotel operation lasted fifteen minutes, but preparations for its media coverage became a significant issue in planning the wider withdrawal.[12] The army anticipated a potentially dangerous confrontation and initially intended to restrict media access; reporters were redirected to a distant checkpoint, while shuttle buses were delayed and blocked by protesting settlers.[12] The episode prompted the disengagement planning team to reconsider its approach and facilitate broader media coverage.[12]

On August 15, residents remaining in Gaza’s settlements received a final 48-hour notice to leave, and the territory-wide evacuation began on August 17.[6] Security forces entered Neve Dekalim at about 8 a.m. that morning.[14] Maj. Gen. Dan Harel went to Avner Shimoni’s home before troops began the evacuation.[14] Residents prayed and sang in the synagogue, some young people who had entered to oppose the withdrawal clashed with police, and residents and troops also sang together.[14]

During August 17, security forces began entering homes to clear them; police reported that residents had voluntarily left 158 buildings.[15] At 14:27, the Israel Defense Forces began evacuating families who remained.[15] Young people who had entered the settlement unlawfully were removed, while some yeshiva students departed voluntarily.[15] Some families had already left before the announced evacuation date, whereas others remained until security forces removed them.[16]

Large numbers of young opponents of disengagement gathered in Neve Dekalim’s religious buildings.[17] On the evening of August 17, after security forces left the synagogue complex, hundreds of young people inside began singing and dancing.[17] About 20 climbed onto the Sephardi synagogue’s roof, raised flags, and recited Psalms.[17] By the following day, approximately 2,000 teenagers remained concentrated in the synagogue and the hesder yeshiva, while most families had been evacuated without force.[18]

Hundreds of teenage boys occupied one synagogue and hundreds of teenage girls another.[2] Older career noncommissioned officers were assigned to the boys’ synagogue, and a special all-female battalion was formed to evacuate the girls.[2] A journalist documented the girls’ evacuation, and the footage was subsequently presented in Song of the Girls.[2] Officials declared Neve Dekalim’s evacuation complete on August 18, alongside the evacuation of five other Gaza settlements that day.[19]

Across Gaza, the settlement evacuation was completed on August 22, and homes were subsequently demolished.[6] The broader removal of Gaza’s Jewish residents affected about 1,700 families and cost nearly $900 million.[8] The evacuation took less than a week, although several weeks had been anticipated.[8] Close to 9,000 people were evacuated from the 21 Gaza communities and four communities in northern Samaria combined; this figure does not represent Neve Dekalim’s population.[20]

The last Israeli soldiers left Gaza at about 7 a.m. on September 12, 2005, ending 38 years of Israeli military presence.[21] Palestinian Authority forces took control of cleared areas, and officers entered the former Neve Dekalim settlement and raised a Palestinian flag.[21] The Israeli military had left its headquarters there for Palestinian use.[21]

Residential structures were razed, while public buildings and synagogues were initially left standing under an Israeli government decision.[5] Palestinians subsequently demolished a Neve Dekalim yeshiva and its two synagogues.[5] Other buildings were reused: the former regional council building became the administration headquarters of an al-Aqsa University branch, the school building housed an Islamic college for girls, and former girls’ seminary buildings accommodated the Gaza Polytechnic Institute.[5] The community-center basketball court continued to function as a basketball court.[5]

Former residents faced a lengthy process of resettlement.[22][23] In 2007, Nitzan, north of Ashkelon, was identified as the intended permanent community for Neve Dekalim evacuees.[22] Its temporary site then housed approximately 500 families from several evacuated communities, rather than from Neve Dekalim alone.[22] Although preliminary agreements and infrastructure preparations existed, residents anticipated a complex construction process and the possibility of waiting years for permanent homes.[22]

In 2008, evacuee Eliezer Orbach was living in the temporary caravilla complex at Ein Tzurim with 70 other Neve Dekalim families.[23] The group hoped to establish new communities in East Lachish but faced continuing uncertainty and delays over sites and infrastructure.[23] Some Neve Dekalim evacuees subsequently established Bnei Dekalim in southern Israel.[3] In 2019, former residents inaugurated a reconstruction of their original synagogue’s event hall at their synagogue in Nitzan, fourteen years after the evacuation.[24]

Neve Dekalim’s recorded population rose from 2,230 in 1999 to 2,280 in 2000, 2,370 in 2001, 2,470 in 2002, and 2,563 in 2003.[9] A July 2005 government profile described approximately 500 families and 2,600 residents, making it Gaza’s largest Israeli settlement.[1] A 2015 retrospective used the same approximate family and population figures.[5]

Published household counts use different measures and reporting dates: alongside the approximately 500-family estimate, a November 2005 report described 467 occupied housing units, while a report on the evacuation referred to 520 families.[10][25] A 2008 retrospective gave a higher figure of 600 families.[23] The approximately 8,500 Israeli settlers counted across the Gaza Strip in the disengagement plan were the territory-wide population, not Neve Dekalim’s residents alone.[6]

The number of people present during the evacuation also included opponents of disengagement who had entered the settlement.[25] One contemporaneous account placed nearly 3,000 such people, together with remaining families, at the large synagogue.[25] These temporary arrivals were distinct from the settlement’s usual resident population.[25]

An industrial area near Neve Dekalim included a garage, carpentry shop, and press.[4] The settlement also contained commercial facilities and government offices, alongside the industrial zone serving Gush Katif.[1][10] Agriculture supported the surrounding settlements, and the region was known for hydroponically grown vegetables.[4]

Religious education and communal institutions were prominent features of local life.[1] Neve Dekalim had two yeshivas, two large synagogues, an elementary school, a girls’ religious high school, a women’s study center, and a community sports center.[26] Its broader services included youth movements, cultural activities, health services, and a regional library.[1] A girls’ medrasha formed part of the network of educational institutions serving the Gaza settlements, which also maintained their own schools, seminaries, stores, and doctors.[8]

The event hall beneath the large synagogue hosted weddings, bar mitzvah celebrations, circumcisions, and other community occasions.[24] It covered approximately 1,000 square meters and had a large courtyard.[24] Its reconstruction in Nitzan in 2019 restored a communal venue associated with these family and religious celebrations.[24]

Personal recollections also describe homes amid sand dunes, children playing along gravel paths, and periods when water and electricity were not consistently available.[27] Grocery deliveries were limited, with dairy products arriving twice weekly and fruit and vegetables once a week in one recollection of community life.[27]

Shifra Shomron’s novel Grains of Sand: The Fall of Neve Dekalim depicts ordinary family and neighborhood life before following residents through the disengagement.[16] An interview about the novel notes that some families left voluntarily before the announced date, while others remained and were forcibly removed.[16] The film Song of the Girls likewise preserved a record of one of the evacuation’s synagogue episodes.[2]

The hesder yeshiva occupied a Star of David-shaped building that became one of Gush Katif’s symbols.[26] The settlement’s other yeshiva was Torat Haim, a higher-level religious institution.[26] Its two large synagogues, educational buildings, and regional council offices formed part of the concentration of public institutions serving the surrounding settlements.[26]

The Gush Katif cemetery stood adjacent to Neve Dekalim and contained 48 graves, including those of six residents killed in terrorist attacks and three Israel Defense Forces soldiers.[5] Under the disengagement plan, all the graves were emptied and the remains reburied in cemeteries in Israel.[5]

The disengagement generated organized opposition and required Israeli security forces to remove fellow Israelis from their homes.[12] In a reflection quoted by the Jewish Review of Books, journalist Dan Margalit expressed sorrow at the evacuation scenes and recalled his promise not to support “the eviction of a Jew by a fellow Jew from his legal home.”[28]

Land claims also formed part of the dispute surrounding the settlement.[29] In an August 2005 interview, nearby al-Mawasi resident Hashem al-Ara alleged that bulldozers had taken more than 30 of his family’s 70 dunams when Neve Dekalim was built and that construction used sand from their land.[29] He said his family possessed historical land documents; the interview did not independently adjudicate ownership.[29]

A movement founded by Friends of Gush Katif sought a return to the evacuated bloc and had a reported 6,500 members in 2016.[3] Return remained the movement’s aspiration, rather than an accomplished resettlement.[3]