Israel clears out homes in abandoned settlements

With blazing speed, Israeli bulldozers are demolishing the 2,800 homes left behind after Israel cleared the Gaza Strip of its Jewish residents in less than a week.

Israel and the Palestinians are in surprising agreement that destruction is the best option. The Palestinians need space for parks, tourism and tall apartment buildings in crowded Gaza, and Israel doesn’t want to see militants celebrating on the rooftops of the abandoned homes.

“It wasn’t a difficult issue because we had an interest in demolishing, and they did too,” said Ghassan Khatib, the Palestinian planning minister.

The efforts have strong international backing. With help from a US mediator, the two sides said today they’ve agreed on removing hazardous rubble and recycling material for Palestinian development.

The pace of the demolitions has been astonishing.

Israeli bulldozers smashed down the first trailer homes last Friday – even before the evacuation of settlers was complete.

By today, more than 700 structures had been reduced to rubble, or a quarter of the total, according to the Israeli Defence Ministry.

Among the targeted communities today was Gadid, the former farming community where Shmuel Berrebi has spent his entire life. Berrebi, 25, sat on a couch in his former backyard as a bulldozer punched through the roof and flatted the two-bedroom home.

“The whole thing took five minutes,” said a stunned Berrebi, who was permitted to remain in the settlement because he works as a security guard. “It wasn’t easy to watch.”

Despite the pain, Berrebi said he felt a need to give a final farewell to the home, and admitted that he would rather see the building reduced to rubble than see Hamas militants plant their flag their flag on the roof. “In a way, I’m sort of happy. They’re not leaving anything for the Arabs,” he said.

Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said yesterday he expects the demolitions to be completed by the end of next week – paving the way for Palestinians to take over the settlement areas.

Under the deal announced today, Israel will remove asbestos and other hazardous materials from the settlements, while leaving public buildings intact.

The Palestinians are to dispose of the remaining rubble, keeping recyclable materials for themselves to build a seaport and other projects. They would transfer unusable debris to a third party – most likely waste removal companies in neighbouring Egypt.

Israel is to foot the estimated €22m bill.

Diana Buttu, legal adviser to the Palestinian Authority, said it could take up to a year to clear the rubble.

Israel and the Palestinians initially had strong misgivings about demolishing the houses. Israel worried that the mass destruction would hurt its image, while the Palestinians didn’t want to be left with so much rubble.

But the two sides concluded the future required a different kind of development, and the Palestinians are fast at work.

Khatib, the planning minister, said the former beachside farming communities in the Gush Katif bloc of settlements in southern Gaza will be devoted to tourism, agriculture and even a nature reserve.

Settlements in northern Gaza will become industrial areas.

Palestinian officials want the isolated coastal settlement of Netzarim to be a hub for a seaport. They want to turn Morag, near Gush Katif, into a large apartment development to ease the housing crunch in Gaza, home to 1.3 million mostly impoverished people.

The international community is playing a crucial role. International Mideast envoy James Wolfensohn, an American who used to head the World Bank, helped broker the rubble deal.

Wolfensohn recently persuaded a group of wealthy American Jews, including publisher Mortimer Zuckerman, to raise €10.3m to buy settlers’ greenhouses and preserve 3,500 Palestinian jobs.

Wolfensohn put up €366,900 of his own cash.

Palestinian officials say they also have pledges from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to build thousands of apartments. The UAE alone has pledged €22m to build 3,000 apartments for Palestinian refugees and young couples, officials say.

Israeli officials say they hope a successful handover of Israel’s assets in Gaza will help breathe new life into long-stalled peace talks.

“What we’ve done over the last few weeks has been difficult for Israel. This was a very painful process,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. “But I think there’s an understanding that it creates an opportunity that wasn’t there before.”

In one of the most visible signs of change, Israel has agreed to leave its three-story military headquarters in Gaza intact.

But the goodwill only goes so far. Israel is destroying the building’s underground bunker, fearing militants could one day hoard weapons there.