Settler split in Gaza
Exclusive: Gush Katif settlement of Ganei Tal on the verge of splitting after 46 families express their willingness to leave voluntarily; 30 families oppose move, threaten to set up alternative institutions
GANEI TAL - An unprecedented controversy in the Gaza Strip settlement of Ganei Tal is threatening to split the community apart.
Some 30 families are demanding that all other residents be kicked out of settlement after they expressed their willingness to voluntarily move to two other communities as part of the framework of the upcoming pullout.
The affair began after 46 families from Ganei Tal agreed to sign an internal memorandum expressing their willingness to move out of the community as a group.
The families are intending to hand over the required documents to Disengagement Authority to facilitate the move in the next two days.
However, another 30 families in the community are furious at the arrangement, with some settlers telling Ynet that the community is on the brink of collapse. The sources said it now appears the settlement would be split into two, with separate officials representing each group.
The solution offered by the government to Ganei Tal residents who agreed to leave is terrible and partial, one settler said.
“A better solution for the entire community can be found,” he said.
Fight over tactics
"There are those who say that one should go now, but we argue the opposite," one long-term resident told Ynet. "Every settlement in the bloc should cut ties with the government and join us because theirs is a wasted effort … If in the end, they evacuate us, so we'll all go together."
The hardliners also oppose the idea having to graduate from hotels, to luxury mobile homes, to permanent communities and believe that those who leave now are in jeopardy of being left at the whims of the government.
Said the old-timer, "Who knows how long they'll remain refugees?"
