Neve Dekalim ( he, נְוֵה דְּקָלִים) (lit. "Oasis of Palms") was an

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...

and a

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

in the

Gush Katif Gush Katif ( he, גוש קטיף, , Harvest Bloc) was a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza strip. In August 2005, the Israeli army forcibly removed the 8,600 residents of Gush Katif from their homes after a decision from the Ca ...

settlement bloc 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.. ...

. It was founded in 1983 after the Israeli withdrawal from the

Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a l ...

. Neve Dekalim served as a regional center for the Gush Katif region and was the seat of the

Hof Aza Regional Council The Hof Aza Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית חוף עזה, "Gaza Coast Regional Council") was a regional council of Israel until 2005 when its residents were evicted from their homes and the area was liquidated as part of Israel's ...

. It was located between the

Khan Yunis Khan Yunis ( ar, خان يونس, also spelled Khan Younis or Khan Yunus; translation: ''Caravansary fJonah'') is a city in the southern Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Khan Yunis had a population of 142,6 ...

Palestinian refugee camp Camps are set up by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to accommodate Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA, who fled or were expelled during the 1948 Palestinian ...

and the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

. Neve Dekalim was evacuated in August 2005 as part of

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 ...

. It was turned into a training camp by Hamas, which described it as a "military training camp for martyrs."

History

The population consisted of about 520 families (2,600 people), mainly

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 ...

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. It was the largest Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and a major commercial center for the region. The Gush Katif industrial zone was located in Neve Dekalim. The 10-acre Katifari Zoo housed hundreds of snakes, birds and other animals. From the

Second Intifada The Second Intifada ( ar, الانتفاضة الثانية, ; he, האינתיפאדה השנייה, ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada ( ar, انتفاضة الأقصى, label=none, '), was a major Palestinian uprising against Israel. ...

until its evacuation in 2005, Gaza militants fired some 6,000 mortars and

Qassam rocket The Qassam rocket ( ar, صاروخ القسام ''Ṣārūkh al-Qassām''; also ''Kassam'') is a simple, steel artillery rocket developed and deployed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas. These rockets cannot be fired ...

s at Neve Dekalim. In July 2005, shortly before the disengagement plan was implemented, two people were injured by mortar fire.

Evacuation and withdrawal

The evacuation of Neve Dekalim began on August 15, as part of the Israel unilateral disengagement plan, and was completed on 18 August. The residents were given 48 hours to leave. Those who refused to evacuate barricaded themselves in the synagogue, but were forcibly removed by the

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...

and the

Israel Police The Israel Police ( he, משטרת ישראל, ''Mišteret Yisra'el''; ar, شرطة إسرائيل, ''Shurtat Isrāʼīl'') is the civilian police force of Israel. As with most other police forces in the world, its duties include crime fightin ...

The homes were

bulldozed A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous tracks, ...

after the withdrawal on August 14, leaving only the greenhouses, which were part of a transaction in which private American citizens bought them for the Palestinians. The donors spent $14 million on the purchase. Former World Bank President

James Wolfensohn Sir James David Wolfensohn (1 December 193325 November 2020) was an Australian-American lawyer, investment banker, and economist who served as the ninth president of the World Bank Group (1995–2005). During his tenure at the World Bank, he is ...

put up $500,000 of his own cash. Despite the presence of Palestinian security guards, dozens of greenhouses were looted by Palestinians, who emptied them of irrigation hoses, water pumps and plastic sheeting. Marching through the abandoned town in a "victory parade," thousands of masked

Hamas Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Bri ...

gunmen fired in the air and trampled an

Israeli flag The flag of Israel ( he, דגל ישראל '; ar, علم إسرائيل ') was adopted on 28 October 1948, five months after the establishment of the Israel, State of Israel. It depicts a blue hexagram on a white background, between two horizo ...

. Hamas turned the site into a barbed-wire enclosed training camp from which Qassam rockets were launched into Israel. It was the largest Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip. Signs posted in Arabic state that it is a "closed military zone."

Mahmoud al-Zahar Mahmoud al-Zahar ( ar, محمود الزهار ') (born 6 May 1945) is a Palestinian politician. He is a co-founder of Hamas and a member of the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip. Al-Zahar served as foreign minister in the Hamas-dominated Pa ...

, chief of Hamas said that Hamas planned to launch attacks that would drive Jews out of the West Bank and the entire state. In 2010, the site of Neve Dekalim was mostly sand and rubble, with Palestinian trucks removing the last remnants of Jewish homes for use as construction material. In Israel, former residents of the settlement established a new village, Bnei Dekalim.

Literary references

Neve Dekalim is featured in the movie Disengagement by

Amos Gitai Amos Gitai ( he, עמוס גיתאי; born 11 October 1950) is an Israeli filmmaker, who was trained as an architect. Gitai's work was presented in several major retrospectives in Pompidou Center in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and L ...

. ''Grains Of Sand: The Fall Of Neve Dekalim'' by Shifra Shomron, a former resident of Neve Dekalim, is a semi-autobiographical novel about an Israeli family evacuated from Gush Katif.Grains of Sand: The Fall of Neve Dekalim
/ref>

References

{{Authority control Former Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip Populated places established in 1983 Religious Israeli settlements Villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict