Reuters Features
Palestinians Eye Better Lives if Israel Leaves Gaza
Date: Wed Apr 21, 8:48 AM ET
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Mahmoud Abu Naja has dusted off the deed to his late father's land for the day the Jewish settlement next door is evacuated under an Israeli plan to "disengage" from conflict with the Palestinians.
"My father lived and died hoping to return to cultivate his land and tend to it with his own sweat," said Mahmoud, 27, one of 14 Abu Naja children. "We have both hopes and doubts. We are used to tricks by (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon."
Sharon wants to remove settlements that he deems a liability from the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), which Israel captured in a 1967 war. But he would also keep Gaza's borders shut and the freedom to go back in if Palestinian militants appear to pose a further threat.
Yet Sharon has revived Palestinian hopes of a better life in Gaza, where 7,500 settlers in sleek fortified suburban enclaves covering 20 percent of a tiny 140 square-mile territory that is also home to 1.3 million poverty-stricken Palestinians.
Sharon plans to cement Israel's hold on some settlements in the West Bank as part of his plan, angering Palestinians.
But they welcome the prospect at least of a Gaza shorn of Israelis that symbolizes an occupation that did not end in 1994 when Israel handed over Gaza's cities and refugee camps to local self-rule under interim peace deals.
To many Gazans, the settlements have been sources of "death and pain" because they absorbed considerable Palestinian property, some of it razed to create military buffer zones aimed at depriving militants of cover for attacks.
Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) officials say most of the land now within settlement boundaries belonged to the Gaza municipality and the rest to several hundred families.
CLINGING TO OLD PROPERTY PAPERS
Mahmoud, showing a reporter ownership papers, said his father lost five acres in 1976 to the Morag settlement close to the sprawling Rafah refugee camp at Gaza's southern end where the family lives.
"We are mostly unemployed. Some of us might find work for a day or two per week. Our lives could change for the better if our land was returned," he said.
Abdel-Ghani Abu Jazar, 55, described how Morag swallowed up his land overnight in 2000. "One day I went out to my olive grove to find the trees cut down and the land flattened, with some Israeli tanks and soldiers standing on it," he said.
"I told them it was my land. They said go away, it's not yours any more. It became army property."
Nabil Shamalakh, 39, hopes to replant his vineyard near the Netzarim settlement, which he said was torn down by army bulldozers in 2001. "I imagine waking up and not seeing Netzarim. It would be the happiest event ever for me."
Palestinians with homes edging the perimeters of settlements complain of frequent gunfire from Israeli troops. Hospitals say dozens of Palestinian militants and civilians have been shot dead by soldiers, sometimes from watchtowers.
"We dream of the day where we can live in our homes and on our land without fear," Naja said.
"Enough of the humiliation," said Abu Jabar.
Israel says the security measures are necessary against militants who have targeted settlers thousands of times with sniper fire, roadside bombs, rockets and mortars, killing dozens in 2000-02 before the army beefed up their security.
Zainab al-Ghuneimi of the Palestinian Labor Ministry said the removal of settlements would be an economic boon for Gazans.
"Palestinians will make use of the land, recovering 40 percent of its fertile soil. Demolitions of orchards, vineyards and olive trees would stop, and people will have freedom of movement throughout the territory," she said.
Officials are anxious for Israel to preserve jobs critical to Gaza -- the Erez border industrial zone where 3,000 Palestinians work, and employment for 14,000 Gazans in Israel.
They are also keen on trade with Israel continuing as it accounts for 93 percent of Gaza's exports and imports.
PALESTINIAN REFUGEES EYE SETTLER HOUSES
Some of the Palestinian refugees who make up over 60 percent of Gaza's population count on the Palestinian Authority to let them move into homes vacated by Jewish settlers.
"The house where we live is very small. I hope once Israel withdraws from the settlements the Palestinian Authority would give us a piece of land or house to better accommodate my family," said Jamal Abu al-Foul, a 38-year-old father of six.
Some fear that settlement land could wind up in the hands of Authority officials seen as corrupt, as happened with big tracts of public property after Gaza won self rule in 1994.
A Palestinian Authority official insisted the rights of anyone with deeds to land within settlements would be honored.
But the hope of Palestinians to recover Gaza land is tempered by the awareness that the nationalist, religious settlers have vowed to resist evacuation.
They enjoy significant support among rightists in Sharon's Likud party who vow to defeat a referendum of Likud members on the pullout slated for May 2.
Analysts say the pullout would be shelved if Sharon loses the vote, likely to be close, or if he is indicted in a corruption scandal. He denies any wrongdoing.
SOURCE
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