REVISITING GAZA
Jews and their Israelite ancestors had lived in Gaza since Biblical times. An historic Jewish community existed in Gaza City prior to its expulsion by the British, for safety reasons (after many had been massacred), during the infamous 1929 riots by the city’s Arabs. Land for the village of Kfar Darom (in the Gaza Strip) was purchased in the 1930’s and settled in 1946. It was evacuated following an Egyptian siege in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In1968, Yigal Allon presented an initiative for the founding of two paramilitary settlements in the centre of the Gaza Strip. He viewed the breaking of the continuity between the northern and southern Arab settlements as vital to Israel's security in the area - which had been captured the previous year in the 1967 Six-Day War. In 1970, Kfar Darom was re-established as the first of many Israeli villages in the area. Allon's idea was ultimately designed with five key areas slated for Israeli presence along the length of the ...