Extremists set up outpost in empty Gush Katif hotel
01.11.2009, 08:55
Dozens of right-wing extremists have moved into the Hof Dekalim hotel in Gush Katif during the past two weeks, and the Israel Defense Forces fears that they will turn the hotel into the focus of hard-core resistance to the evacuation from Gush Katif.
Szállodák Prága, szállás London, szálloda Bécs, szálláshelyek Róma
A senior IDF officer said yesterday that the army was keeping an eye on developments at the site and would decide whether to take action against the activists who have moved in.
There are currently 15 families living there as well as 20 youths. Most of the new residents hail from settlements in the West Bank and some are connected with the outlawed Kach group, although others come from central Israel.
The hotel was founded in 1986 at the initiative of the Tourism Ministry, the Jewish Agency and seven Gush Katif settlements. It is a few meters from the sea, opposite Neveh Dekalim, the urban center of Gush Katif. A few years later, the hotel was sold to the Ben-David family of Jerusalem, and they operated it fairly successfully until the current intifada. When terrorist attacks increased, visitors stopped coming and the hotel was closed down. The new residents say that the Ben-David family has agreed to the hotel's renovation and reuse.
The renovation work is being overseen by Nadia Matar, head of Women in Green, and Datiyah Yitzhaki, a resident of the Kfar Yam settlement and head of Kela - a group that welcomes new residents to the Gaza Strip.
The activists are planning a news conference at which time the hotel will be named Maoz Hayam - the Sea Stronghold.
The youths living at the hotel are secular residents of Gush Katif who have found low-cost housing there. The two groups are said to be at loggerheads over religious practices.
One officer from the security forces said yesterday, "We hope the equipment they are storing there for the disengagement does not consist of anything more than pasta."
They are taking pains not to avoid a clash with the extremists at the hotel and are not taking steps to remove them at this stage.
The security forces also face difficulty in legally evicting residents from the hotel, which is private property.
Settler publications talk of establishing two more new strongholds in the Gush where supporters from outside the region will stay until the disengagement.
IDF sources said the hotel residents appear to be "extremist but not suicidal."
Many residents of Gush Katif have expressed displeasure with the presence of the new strongholds. They said they regard the new settler-supporters and their type of struggle as alien to the way of life of veteran Gush Katif settlers and that their behavior could damage nonviolent resistence to the disengagement.