(IsraelNN.com) The Cabinet approved two expenditures for the Disengagement expellees in its weekly meeting on Sunday, including an extension on their free housing while the bureaucracy unwrangles itself.
The larger expenditure, 13 million shekels ($3.275 million), will be used for the ongoing educational needs of pupils who were thrown out of their homes four years ago. Provided services include psychological and educational counseling, bus transportation, partially-subsidized enrichment programs, and more.
Another 3 million shekels ($750,000) will be used to pay for housing for families whose plots of land for their future homes have not yet been made available. The new decision provides for the government to continue to provide them with pre-fab homes of 60-120 square meters – in place of their destroyed homes that in many cases were three times larger – until their homes are ready. Their rent will be paid until 18 months after the expellee receives rights to the plot, or until 15 months after construction work on his home can begin – whichever is later.
The Sela Authority, a body in the Prime Minister’s Office that has been charged with providing housing solutions to the expellees, reported as follows: “It has become clear that the expellees require more time to build their homes. Many of them have encountered, in the course of planning and construction, delays that were not under their control. Similarly, it has become clear that for many of them, the process involves decisions that are not typical of normal cases of do-it-yourself construction of residences.”
Former MK Amira Dotan of Kadima, who in her lone term as MK between 2006 and 2009 was very active on behalf of the expelled residents, testified today (Sunday) at the Public Investigative Committee that is investigating the manner in which the expellees’ problems were handled. “I have a bad feeling that four years afterwards,” she said, “no solution has yet been implemented for the residents. Some of them are OK, but very few; neither the rate nor the manner was acceptable.”
“The frustration simply cries out,” Dotan said. “There was no advance thinking of two steps ahead, no one thought big.”
One of the committee judges said, “What you are saying is terrible, that the Knesset and government are not able to supervise 14 clerks.” Dotan responded, “It is very painful… Our country is blessed with these great people [from Gush Katif], but even though they cooperated with the government, they are still suffering.”
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