GUSH KATIF WILL RISE AGAIN - My Last Letter From Gush Katif - by Rachel Saperstein

August 16, 2005

I am crying. Tears stream down as I write this letter to you.

We are packing. Tonight we will receive our eviction letter. The soldiers will knock at our door and we will answer the door…  Tomorrow we will be put on to buses and brought… who knows where.

Our friends who have been living with us are packing up my home. I am so grateful they are here and doing this awful work. I don’t care if my things are clean or folded carefully. They are just thrown into cardboard boxes provided by the army, each marked with our name and a blue sticker. An ugly red shipping container will probably be put on our front lawn today, the visible sign that we are leaving.

Residents were called to the town hall for an emergency meeting this morning. Our mayor, Lior Kalfa, gave us our instructions. Rabbi Yigal Kaminetzky praised the large crowd of people who did not leave. Eighty percent of Neve Dekalim residents are here today. We are the people who have held out to the end under the most difficult conditions. War weary after five years of bombardment and a year of extreme psychological pressure, we are still here.

Ariel Sharon has won the battle but he lost the war. He has lost the people of Israel. He has crushed the soul of our soldiers.

Gush Katif will rise again, at another time and in another place. We were a source of inspiration, of greatness, a fight well fought, a fight for the right to be a Jew in a Jewish land.

Gush Katif will rise and the Sharon government will be remembered with contempt by the people.

And so this chapter is over.