Rafiah Yam ( he, רָפִיחַ יָם) was an Israeli settlement, in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

until 2005.

History

Rafiah Yam was originally established in 1984 as a

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

community in the southern end of the Gush Katif settlement bloc, only 200 metres from the Egyptian border and close to the

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

city of

Rafah Rafah ( ar, رفح, Rafaḥ) is a Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip. It is the district capital of the Rafah Governorate, located south of Gaza City. Rafah's population of 152,950 (2014) is overwhelmingly made up of former Palestini ...

. Residents of the settlement worked mainly in agriculture. Being one of the few non-

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

settlements, the community children were bused each day to school in the nearby Eshkol region outside the

Unilateral disengagement

The 30 families, including at least 150 people, of Rafiah Yam were forcibly evicted from their homes by the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli Police as part of the

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan The Israeli disengagement from Gaza ( he, תוכנית ההתנתקות, ') was the unilateral dismantling in 2005 of the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of Israeli settlers and army from inside the Gaza Strip. Th ...

, in August 2005. Their houses and other structures were destroyed and the area was abandoned. {{Former Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip Former Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip Populated places established in 1984 1991 establishments in the Palestinian territories 2005 disestablishments in the Palestinian territories