Netzarim (settlement)
Encyclopedia
Netzarim was formerly an Israeli settlement
established in Gaza
(about 5 km south-west of the centre of Gaza City) in 1972. It began as a secular
Nahal
(Young Pioneer) outpost of the Hashomer Hatzair
movement; in 1984 it became an orthodox
kibbutz
. A few years later, the residents decided to change from a kibbutz to a village. It was often referred to in the media as a stronghold for Religious Zionism
. Its activities included a mango
plantation and vineyard
, hothouse
cultivated yam
s and cherry tomato
es, and a prestigious etrog plantation. The settlement also boasted day care centers, kindergartens, a primary school, a kollel
, a Yeshiva
, and the Jews of Gaza Heritage Institute, which documented Jewish settlement in Gaza over the generations. The development of educational institutions independent from the Gush Katif
bloc was due to its isolated location and intensifying Palestinian
attacks on traffic using the only route in during the al-Aqsa Intifada
. During the last several years of its existence, transportation to and from Netzarim was permitted only with armed military escorts.
, violence increased at Netzarim and at the nearby Israeli military outpost at Netzarim junction located about two kilometres from the village. Netzarim junction being at a crossroads between the only road leaving the village as well as a north-south road used by Palestinians.
On the first day of clashes at the junction, media reported the death of Muhammad al-Dura, turning the junction into a flashpoint.
during Israel's unilateral disengagement plan
from the Gaza Strip
ordered by the government of Ariel Sharon
. Their eviction marked the end of the Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip since the end of the 1967 Six-Day War
. The strong religiosity of its residents was exhibited by seedlings being planted in the greenhouses, cement being laid for a new home that very morning, and a large prayer session in the main synagogue that would later be destroyed by Palestinians after the Israeli army finally abandoned the village on September 12, 2005.
After the eviction, the residents, who had prided themselves in not cooperating with any government agency involved in the eviction, were welcomed in the dormitories of the College of Judea and Samaria
by the school administration, students, volunteers and residents of Ariel
and the surrounding West Bank
settlements. Before the beginning of the academic year, the former residents of Netzarim decided to split up into two groups. One group moved to the temporary government refugee camp
of Yevul
near the Egypt
ian border. The other group decided to stay in Ariel.
and other military vehicles on January 4, 2009. The reoccupation of Netzarim effectively separated Gaza City from southern Gaza Strip, weakening Hamas
' control of the region. On the early morning of January 12, troops stationed at Netzarim began their northward push into Gaza City's Sheikh Ajleen neighborhood. With a ceasefire declared by Israel on January 17, its soldiers gradually evacuated the site of Netzarim.
Israeli settlement
An Israeli settlement is a Jewish civilian community built on land that was captured by Israel from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered occupied territory by the international community. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank...
established in Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
(about 5 km south-west of the centre of Gaza City) in 1972. It began as a secular
Secular Jewish culture
Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the international culture of secular communities of Jewish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews...
Nahal
Nahal
Nahal is an Israel Defense Forces infantry brigade. Historically, it refers to a program that combines military service and establishment of new agricultural settlements, often in outlying areas...
(Young Pioneer) outpost of the Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair is a Socialist–Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine...
movement; in 1984 it became an orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
. A few years later, the residents decided to change from a kibbutz to a village. It was often referred to in the media as a stronghold for Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...
. Its activities included a mango
Mango
The mango is a fleshy stone fruit belonging to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is native to India from where it spread all over the world. It is also the most cultivated fruit of the tropical world. While...
plantation and vineyard
Vineyard
A vineyard is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice...
, hothouse
Greenhouse
A greenhouse is a building in which plants are grown. These structures range in size from small sheds to very large buildings...
cultivated yam
Yam (vegetable)
Yam is the common name for some species in the genus Dioscorea . These are perennial herbaceous vines cultivated for the consumption of their starchy tubers in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania...
s and cherry tomato
Cherry tomato
A cherry tomato is a small variety of tomato that has been cultivated since at least the early 1800s and thought to have originated in Peru and Northern Chile. Cherry tomatoes range in size from a thumbtip up to the size of a golf ball, and can range from being spherical to slightly oblong in shape...
es, and a prestigious etrog plantation. The settlement also boasted day care centers, kindergartens, a primary school, a kollel
Kollel
A kollel is an institute for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature. Like a yeshiva, a kollel features shiurim and learning sedarim ; unlike a yeshiva, the student body of a kollel are all married men...
, a Yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
, and the Jews of Gaza Heritage Institute, which documented Jewish settlement in Gaza over the generations. The development of educational institutions independent from the Gush Katif
Gush Katif
Gush Katif was a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza strip. Gush Katif was specifically mentioned by Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who fell victim to an assassin in 1995, as essential to Israel's security border. In August 2005, the Israeli army moved the 8,600...
bloc was due to its isolated location and intensifying Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
attacks on traffic using the only route in during the al-Aqsa Intifada
Al-Aqsa Intifada
The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Oslo War, was the second Palestinian uprising, a period of intensified Palestinian-Israeli violence, which began in late September 2000...
. During the last several years of its existence, transportation to and from Netzarim was permitted only with armed military escorts.
Netzarim Junction
On September 2000, at the outset of the al-Aqsa IntifadaAl-Aqsa Intifada
The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Oslo War, was the second Palestinian uprising, a period of intensified Palestinian-Israeli violence, which began in late September 2000...
, violence increased at Netzarim and at the nearby Israeli military outpost at Netzarim junction located about two kilometres from the village. Netzarim junction being at a crossroads between the only road leaving the village as well as a north-south road used by Palestinians.
On the first day of clashes at the junction, media reported the death of Muhammad al-Dura, turning the junction into a flashpoint.
Eviction
The residents of Netzarim were the last Israelis to be evicted on August 22, 2005 by the Israel Defense ForcesIsrael Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
during Israel's unilateral disengagement plan
Israel's unilateral disengagement plan
Israel's unilateral disengagement plan , also known as the "Disengagement plan", "Gaza expulsion plan", and "Hitnatkut", was a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, adopted by the government on June 6, 2004 and enacted in August 2005, to evict all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and from...
from the Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip
thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...
ordered by the government of Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....
. Their eviction marked the end of the Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip since the end of the 1967 Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
. The strong religiosity of its residents was exhibited by seedlings being planted in the greenhouses, cement being laid for a new home that very morning, and a large prayer session in the main synagogue that would later be destroyed by Palestinians after the Israeli army finally abandoned the village on September 12, 2005.
After the eviction, the residents, who had prided themselves in not cooperating with any government agency involved in the eviction, were welcomed in the dormitories of the College of Judea and Samaria
College of Judea and Samaria
The Ariel University Center of Samaria is the largest Israeli public college located in the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank.The center was founded in 1982 to serve as a regional branch of Bar-Ilan University. Originally located in the settlement of Kedumim, it moved to Ariel in order...
by the school administration, students, volunteers and residents of Ariel
Ariel (city)
Ariel is an Israeli settlement and a city in the West Bank. Ariel was established in 1978. Its population at the end of 2009 was 17,600, including 7,000 immigrants who came to Israel after 1990. It is the fourth largest Jewish settlement city in the West Bank., after Modi'in Illit, Beitar Illit,...
and the surrounding West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
settlements. Before the beginning of the academic year, the former residents of Netzarim decided to split up into two groups. One group moved to the temporary government refugee camp
Refugee camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands of people may live in any one single camp. Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, or NGOs.Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu...
of Yevul
Yevul
Yevul is a moshav in southern Israel. Located in the Hevel Shalom area of the north-western Negev desert near the Gaza Strip–Egypt border, it falls under the jurisdiction of Eshkol Regional Council. Founded in 1981 by evacuees from Sinai...
near the Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian border. The other group decided to stay in Ariel.
Operation Cast Lead
IDF took possession of Netzarim again during Operation Cast Lead and entered with 150 MerkavaMerkava
The Merkava is a main battle tank used by the Israel Defense Forces. The tank began development in 1974 and was first introduced in 1978. Four main versions of the tank have been deployed. It was first used extensively in the 1982 Lebanon War...
and other military vehicles on January 4, 2009. The reoccupation of Netzarim effectively separated Gaza City from southern Gaza Strip, weakening Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
' control of the region. On the early morning of January 12, troops stationed at Netzarim began their northward push into Gaza City's Sheikh Ajleen neighborhood. With a ceasefire declared by Israel on January 17, its soldiers gradually evacuated the site of Netzarim.