Some came to burn. Many more came to marvel and then plunder. But for young Mohammed Hijezi it was enough just to touch the sea for the first time. The nine-year-old lives a short run from the beach but until Monday the Israeli military cut off access and he had never seen the sea.
”I came very early, as soon as I had my breakfast and put on my clothes,” he said. ”I was supposed to go to school. My parents don’t know. I was dreaming of swimming. The water is very beautiful and very cold.”
On Monday, it seemed as if all of the Palestinian town of Khan Yunis made its way to the ruins of the largest Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, Neve Dekalim, as soon as Israeli tanks cranked their way out of the territory for the last time.
There was much to celebrate. The people of Khan Yunis can hang their washing on the roof or take a walk to the beach for the first time in years without fear of being shot, and they no longer have to worry about the interminable Israeli roadblocks preventing them getting to work, school or hospital.
But that was not uppermost in the minds of many of the tens of thousands who descended on Neve Dekalim on Monday. Pick-up trucks spilling over with gun-toting men masked in black and decorated with Qur’anic verses arrived in the first few minutes to plant banners in the rubble and declare a victory over Zionism.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Islamic Jihad staked a claim to Neve Dekalim’s twin synagogues by hoisting their flags over their roofs, and then tried to burn down the buildings.
”They should bulldoze this place because if it remains it could be an invitation for them to come back,” said an Al-Aqsa member who gave his name only as Khami. ”The Jews will use any excuse.”
The departing Israelis pasted notices on the synagogue walls proclaiming them to be a ”Holy Place” after Ariel Sharon’s government refused to demolish them on religious grounds and said the Palestinians would be judged by how they treated the buildings. On Monday, Israel described the attempts to burn down or bulldoze synagogues in four former Gaza settlements as ”barbaric”.
But the buildings were already gutted by the departing force, little more than shells stripped of their religion even before Khami took to the windows with a metal bar. Other men, without weapons or visible affiliation, gazed in amazement at the devastation in the Jewish town that had cast its shadow so darkly over Khan Yunis.
The Israelis demolished the home of every settler, leaving jumbles of concrete, roof tiles, bathroom fittings and pipes planted on carefully tended gardens. They said they would leave the public buildings intact but all that remained of most of the schools, shops and administrative offices were walls stripped bare of furnishings.
What the Israelis did not take, the Palestinians soon plundered. Hordes of people scavenged through the rubble in search of anything that might be sold, digging out electrical cables, twisted aluminium window frames and parts of furniture.
Others descend on what was left of the public buildings to strip them of light fittings, sinks, doors, glass and anything else that could be carried as far as a donkey cart. It was, said one, a small payment for the years of misery. Hordes of children skived off school to join the plunder.
Ahmed Gayad (12) was making off with a few strips of aluminium torn from a ceiling and old engine parts.
”I’m going to sell these,” he said. ”I have never seen the settlement. I only saw the tanks from the checkpoint. It’s beautiful because it has parks and gardens. I wish the [Palestinian] authority could build this for us.”
By mid-morning, a line of donkey carts and pick-up trucks piled high with the pathetic pickings was backed up on the once-fortified road into Khan Yunis. As the scavengers worked, a searing black smoke from dozens of fires enveloped much of Neve Dekalim.
The Palestinian security forces mostly stood and watched. There was a shout of alarm from a police officer as one thief made off with a cistern from one of the few toilets still working and available to the police.
”If I don’t take it, you will take it,” he told a police officer.
The officer, Khalid al-Karm, was not happy.
”After 38 years of occupation, we have the victory. We don’t want these people to spoil it,” he said. ”The Israelis gave us a very small piece of land. We will build it into a very beautiful place and hope this will be the future. Tonight will be the most comfortable night for me and my family. It will be a night without shooting in Khan Yunis.”
The Palestinian national security force officer responsible for securing Neve Dekalim, Major Mohammed Baraka, watched his troops parade while a short distance away the looters scrabbled through the remains of shops and a health clinic.
”People have suffered. This is their small reward. I can assure you there has been no big looting. What you see is as we received it from the Israelis. It is against our culture to destroy things,” he said.
Hundreds bypassed the dubious treasures of the settlements and headed for what they considered the real jewel. But the charge to the sea also brought tragedy. Three teenagers drowned after running in with no idea how to swim. — Guardian Unlimited Â