Surrounded by Enimies

By Lisa Beyer/Netzarim

There is not much to Netzarim, the Jewish settlement in the heart of the Gaza Strip. Amid a neat grid of white cottages, a few patches of grass struggle against the native sand. There is a cluster of trailer homes, some chicken yards, hothouses for lettuce, and a patch of mango trees. Netzarim is a tiny community of just 32 families -- 180 people -- but it is the cause of great commotion. As the most vulnerable of the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, Netzarim and the Israeli army contingent that guards it have become favorite targets for Palestinian militants. Over the past two weeks, four soldiers have been killed at the Netzarim junction, and that has intensified calls for the settlement's removal, not just from the Palestinian Authority but from a handful of Israeli cabinet ministers as well.

Yet the settlement remains and, according to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, will not be relocated. While Rabin has no great affection for the place, he believes that dismantling it would amount to rewarding the militants, and thus encourage attacks against other Jewish settlements. Says Uri Dromi, director of Israel's Government Press Office: "The message we want to send is that to get something out of Israel, you have to sit down and talk." Under the limited self-rule agreement that Israel signed with Yasser Arafat, the fate of all the settlements is to be decided in negotiations, scheduled to begin by April 1996, on the final status of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Unlike Gush Khatif, a block of Jewish communities at the southern fringe of the Gaza Strip, home to most of the 4,000 Israeli settlers in the zone, Netzarim is in an area of dense Arab population on the outskirts of Gaza City. Down the road sits the Palestinian village of al-Mograka, whose residents chafe at the restrictions that Netzarim's presence imposes on them. "People will never accept the settlement here," says Nasr Azzam, who runs the local general store. "It is a strange body and a symbol of the occupation."

Residents of al-Mograka were among an estimated 2,000 Palestinians who overran the Israeli army position guarding Netzarim on Nov. 19, forcing the soldiers to retreat temporarily while the mob raised the Hamas flag over the outpost. The incident prompted the military to fortify the position and strengthen the troop force there. Still, the soldiers remain edgy. "The situation is normal -- that is, dangerous," says one of the troopers.

The atmosphere is tense inside Netzarim as well. Since Palestinian self-rule began last May, the settlers have been sending their children to school in Gush Khatif in a bulletproof bus. To avoid Arab villages, the vehicle chooses a route that adds an hour to what would be a 30-min. trip. On occasion the driver takes the direct route, but then the bus carries only armed male adults -- to assert the settlers' right, under the self-rule agreements, to travel the road. Netzarim's inhabitants do not complain much, however. "I don't live where it's comfortable," says teacher Shlomit Ziv. "I live where it's important to live."

The leaders of Israel's settlement movement are preparing for a fight over Netzarim, and have called for "active resistance," as yet undefined, to any effort to uproot the hamlet. Given Rabin's position, the campaign may be , premature -- but not by much. "Anybody with brains in his head knows that when it comes to the final status," says Dromi, "some settlements will have to go." Netzarim will probably lead the list.

With reporting by Robert Slater/Netzarim