Chaya Ediger, center left, and husband Erez Ediger, center right, with their children at their home in the village of Yishi, Israel. (Photo by Reza Green)JERUSALEM (RNS) — As her five children crowd around her, demanding attention, Chaya Ediger, a 35-year-old primary school teacher, makes a sweeping gesture indicating the comforts of her book-filled home in Yishi, a village between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. “I’m ready to leave all these comforts and settle in Gaza,” she said. Her claim is backed up by her long-sleeve T-shirt, which reads, “Gaza is part of the Land of Israel.”
“I will live in a tent without sewage or electricity to fulfill the mitzvah of settling the land of Israel,” she said.
On the sofa nearby sat Avishai Bar Yehuda, 67, a retired administrator and entrepreneur who lives in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon after being forcibly evicted from a settlement in Gaza two decades ago. “After they expelled me from my home,” he said gruffly, “I knew we would return someday. The war in Gaza has given the privilege to return to Gaza, and so we must. We must restore the sanctity and security of the Jewish people.”
Ediger and Bar Yehuda, with their spouses, have signed declarations of intent to move to the Gaza Strip. Altogether, more than 600 families have vowed to establish at least five new settlements, including an urban settlement in Gaza City, according to Nachala, a movement dedicated to promoting the project.
They bring up different reasons for signing: religious and historical imperatives to live in the land promised by God in biblical times; security justifications, arguing that a Jewish presence in Gaza is a necessary protection against future Hamas attacks. Others feel a deep sense of injustice since then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdrew Israel’s troops from Gaza in 2005 and ordered Israeli citizens out as well — the “expulsion,” according to the settlers. Since then Gaza has been strictly off-limits to Israelis.
FILE – Israeli Jewish settlers march holding flags and two of them carrying Torah scrolls as they leave for the last time the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip, the last Gaza settlement to be evacuated on Aug. 22, 2005. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)
But in February, a few young Israelis tried to land on Gaza’s seashore, and in March settlement supporters briefly sent their children through military lines to play inside the buffer zone near the Gaza border. Both groups were turned back by Israeli forces, though Ediger and Bar Yehuda imp …
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“I will live in a tent without sewage or electricity to fulfill the mitzvah of settling the land of Israel,” she said.
On the sofa nearby sat Avishai Bar Yehuda, 67, a retired administrator and entrepreneur who lives in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon after being forcibly evicted from a settlement in Gaza two decades ago. “After they expelled me from my home,” he said gruffly, “I knew we would return someday. The war in Gaza has given the privilege to return to Gaza, and so we must. We must restore the sanctity and security of the Jewish people.”
Ediger and Bar Yehuda, with their spouses, have signed declarations of intent to move to the Gaza Strip. Altogether, more than 600 families have vowed to establish at least five new settlements, including an urban settlement in Gaza City, according to Nachala, a movement dedicated to promoting the project.
They bring up different reasons for signing: religious and historical imperatives to live in the land promised by God in biblical times; security justifications, arguing that a Jewish presence in Gaza is a necessary protection against future Hamas attacks. Others feel a deep sense of injustice since then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdrew Israel’s troops from Gaza in 2005 and ordered Israeli citizens out as well — the “expulsion,” according to the settlers. Since then Gaza has been strictly off-limits to Israelis.
FILE – Israeli Jewish settlers march holding flags and two of them carrying Torah scrolls as they leave for the last time the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip, the last Gaza settlement to be evacuated on Aug. 22, 2005. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)
But in February, a few young Israelis tried to land on Gaza’s seashore, and in March settlement supporters briefly sent their children through military lines to play inside the buffer zone near the Gaza border. Both groups were turned back by Israeli forces, though Ediger and Bar Yehuda imp …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]