[News] Gazans pile up their belongings and flee

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(This is 1948 all over again)


Ha'aretz, May 17, 2004

Gazans pile up their belongings and flee
By Amira Hass

Rafah residents expect IDF to close in for unrestrained demolition of
homes

RAFAH - The streets of Rafah were filled yesterday evening with horse-
drawn carts, trucks and pick-ups, all laden to the brim with any and
every item that the town's residents could remove from their homes -
mattresses, water tanks taken down from roofs, clothes, blankets,
doors and windows removed from their hinges, dismantled beds and
closets, school books, tin and asbestos sheeting, baby carriages,
refrigerators, gas canisters and more.

Everyone living up to 300 meters from the border with Egypt and the
Israel Defense Forces positions and machine guns; everyone who saw
IDF bulldozers raze the homes of his neighbors; everyone who could
and had not yet cleared his home of its contents; everyone living
close to the site where an IDF armored personnel carrier was blown up
last Wednesday - all hastily packed up their belongings. And when the
loading was completed, the women sat at the entrances to the homes,
on concrete blocks or plastic chairs, and watched the vehicles roll
north, to neighborhoods far from the bulldozers.

The families who petitioned the High Court of Justice this weekend
against the house demolitions also emptied their homes yesterday. On
Saturday, after the High Court issued a "qualified temporary
injunction" that stopped the IDF "from carrying out planned
demolitions of any of the homes of the petitioners," there were those
who felt a sense of reprieve. One of the petitioners, a big man,
burst into tears unashamedly in public on hearing the High Court
order. But yesterday morning, after the High Court hastily rejected
the petitions, the petitioners understood that they had better try to
at least save the contents of their homes.

Such was the understanding, for example, of Massad and Ahlam Kishta,
and Fauzi a-Sha'ar - two of the petitioners. They live on Abu Jamal
Street, between Salah a-Din Street and Harakevet Street, under the
eyes of the IDF's Termit outpost. Yesterday at 6 P.M., their homes
were practically empty.

The Kishta and a-Sha'ar families are two of the original clans of the
area, not refugee families. Their homes were built on their privately
owned land, where some 40-50 years ago they cultivated vegetables and
watermelons. The Kishta family father moved to the area in 1956; and
in the 1980s, the Kishtas began gradually building a concrete home
for the expanding family.

The Kishta family has stopped counting the number of times IDF
bulldozers, supported by tanks, APCs and helicopters, have demolished
homes in the area - maybe five, or six. On one occasion, a bulldozer
destroyed their bedroom, from where they now look out onto the steel
wall the army is erecting along the border, the Termit outpost, bare
concrete houses, and piles of rubble between the sand dunes. Last
Thursday, bullets and shells left holes in the walls of their son
Abed's home.

On Thursday and Friday, more homes belonging to members of the Kishta
clan were demolished, when APCs, tanks and helicopters raided the
area. A missile was fired at a group of women; seven people were
killed. Rafah residents vehemently deny IDF claims that the army was
targeting armed Palestinians. Human rights organizations in the town
said all those killed were civilians.

"Two years ago, they tore down my first house on top of me," says one
of the daughters of the a-Sha'ar family. "Now, the moment I heard
them approaching, I fled."

Another a-Sha'ar family member notes, "The IDF says it only
demolishes empty homes. First they chase us out the home with heavy
fire, and then they can demolish it because it's empty. Do they want
us to remain in the house while they are shelling it so that they
won't destroy it?"

According to a rumor that began to spread last night, the IDF is
planning to close off the road between Gaza City and Rafah over the
next three days. A number of people see this a sign that the
demolition work will be renewed - under the cover of a blackout from
the entire world.





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