Thursday, October 13, 2005

 

Katif Heart Attack victim family charged 30,000 IS for burial

Subject: Update on Katif Evacuees: Katif Heart Attack victim family charged 30,000 IS for burial
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 15:56:59 +0200
From: Israel Resource News Agency

State of Gush Katif, Northern Gaza and Northern Shomron Communities
Report #10, October 12, 2005
Submitted by Toby Klein Greenwald
Commissioned by Israel Resource News Agency
and the Center for Near East Policy Research

Victim of Disengagement: 30,000 shekel to bury him "because he doesn't live here"

A member of Moshav Netzer Hazani, Hezi Hazani (no relation to the man for whom it was named), 53, dropped dead yesterday in the market place in Netivot, where he and his wife made a stop on the way to his son's IDF army ceremony in southern Israel.

There was no prior heart condition. They have six children ranging in age from 8 to 25, including two sons in the army. The Hazanis had lived in Netzer Hazani for 25 years.
Photos of Hezi Hazani on page: http://www.katif.net/ro_new.php?id=9306

A close friend of the family who made a shiva call today (there is only one day of shiva, ending with Yom Kippur), said that according to Yedida, Hezi's widow, they had to pay NIS 30,000 to bury him in Rison L'tzion,
because he is not a resident and if one is buried someplace other than his home town, that's what it costs.
Hazani's "home town" now in lies in ruins, bulldozed in Gaza.

The Hazanis, like many others from their moshav, have been living for the last two months in the guest house of Hispin, in the Golan Heights, where they were sent by the Disengagement Authority when the only other solution
offered was apartments but the moshav did not want to be split up. The same family friend spoke to a municipal worker from another region about the issue.
He explained, "That's the price one pays when he wants burial in a specific place where he doesn't have the right to be buried.
"So where should he have been buried" asked the friend.
Hazani'ss mother is currently in America, visiting a daughter in Boston, and could not make it back to Israel for the funeral or for the shiva.
He had originally worked in agriculture in Netzer Hazani but later worked with a building company.
The family had previously decided not to go to Ein Tzurim, with the rest of the Netzer Hazani people, but to rent in the Golan Heights for a year.
However, now Yedida does not know where they will go or what they will do.
The General Situation of Netzer Hazani According to Anita Tucker, the situation is "Even worse than before. They haven't started building mobile homes in Ein Tzurim yet because it hasn't been straightened out between the kibbutz and the government.

"We also have no access to our containers, because we were told by Zim that we will have to pay NIS 7,000 just to open our containers to remove things, and then we'll have to take the containers with us, as they will no longer be Zim's responsibility, but we don't have our permanent homes yet and we don't even know where we'll be so where would we put them.

Tucker's son, Aviel, has opened a kollel in the Golan for the Netzer Hazani people, for which she is trying to raise money.

Netzer Women in the Golan: A personal note
Two days before Yedida's husband died, I met her and two other women from Netzer Hazani at the guest house in Hispin, in the Golan. I walked into the dining hall at 2:30 PM and it was almost empty. Looking at the view of the Golan through the window, one could be fooled into thinking this is a pastoral vacation.
But the sadness in the women's eyes tells a different story There were a few women sitting around a table. Yedida, who is a pre-school teacher, Nava Yisraeli, a pre-school director, and Chaya Shifman. Chaya was
a teacher in Sderot, in the Negev who says she has "taken a sabbatical". The others are unemployed.

The Golan is particularly cold in the winter and the Netzer people, who have nowhere to put their containers, don't know what they'll do about winter clothing, since most of them have not yet received the NIS 50,000
advance on compensation.
Chaya says that the process of receiving compensation is long and difficult, and it works better if one has connections.
They also say that the teenagers are having a particularly difficult time with it; they are asking questions about the disengagement, about the state, religion. Some of them are in high schools that are far away from the Golan, but the Ministry of Education won?t pay the cost of bus transportation, that is expensive.

Nava says, "The Ministry of Labor has offered retraining courses but, since we don't know where they'll ultimately live, it's difficult to know which courses to take, and they may extend beyond the time that we'll be in the Golan" Nava also says that some young people are working part time harvesting myrtle branches to be used in lulavim on Succot.
"They were in such a hurry to get us out of our homes, but it's to add a sin to that crime, that the government didn't worry about employment, about our possessions, or about where we would live. "There certainly is not a
solution for every settler?"
Outside, in the lobby, there is a special bulletin board for Netzer Hazani, and the notices include time schedules of Tora classes, a letter telling them that they will have to start paying for their hotel rooms, and the meal times. A little girl rides a tricycle through the hotel hallway. On the lawn there is a large succa being erected by the hotel. There are Netzer men who are helping put up the succa. It gives them one more thing to do in the course of a long day.

Just before I leave, I'm leaning over the reception counter, looking at some of the tourist brochures. I feel a loving hand on my shoulder and hear "Shana tova". I turn around. It is a woman dressed in the hotel uniform.
"Oh, I thought you were someone else", she apologizes, as she walks out the door. I follow and ask her what her take is on the situation. "I wouldn't change places with them", she says. "A family with five kids in two hotel
rooms? But we do our best".

The Disengagement and El-Kaida
Yoram Bin Nur, a Channel Two military analyst, said on the Reshet al Haboker morning show, October 11, that, in the wake of the disengagement, "We know that El-Kaida have infiltrated from the Sinai". Regarding Judea and Samaria, he said, "Hamas, Islamic Jihad, El-Kaida = : It's an issue of orientation. It's all the same".
He said that some of the recent terrorists who have been arrested or who are on the wanted list range in age from 19 to 25, which means they were 15 when the current intifada began, which means that Hamas considers them "fresh meat"; they have no [police] records yet so it is harder for the Shabak to track them down.

Other Hotels
At the time of this writing, there was still no solution for the people staying in the Shirat Hayam Hotel in Ashkelon. The Gadid people, who had a terrible experience on Rosh Hashana at the Shalom Plaza branch in Tiberias, say they were promised that the hotel would be "cleaned up" in time for Succot. Some of them will stay at Neve Ilan for Succot and some of them will go either back to the Shalom Plaza, if it is in better condition, or somewhere else - they don't know where yet.
Shoshi Journeau reports that the Disengagement Authority has told the Gadid people that at the end of October they have to leave Neve Ilan, even if their caravans are not yet ready in Masuot Yitzhak, which is waiting to
absorb them. Meanwhile, the Authority has told them to choose from among the apartments available in Beer Sheva, Ashkelon and elsewhere.

For more information or contact numbers contact
Toby Klein Greenwald
toby@wholefamily.com

Comments: Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?