These Canadian-Israeli settlers were forced to leave Gaza 20 years ago. They say it was a mistake

Israel took a gamble in 2005 — staking national security, ideology, and an entire way of life on the hope of peace.

That August, under the Disengagement Plan launched by then prime minister Ariel Sharon — a former general once regarded as the patron of the settlement movement — Israel carried out a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Soldiers were deployed not to defend territory, but to uproot their own citizens.

Within days, 21 Jewish communities were abandoned. Roughly 10,000 Israelis were evacuated from their homes by their own army. Graves were exhumed, and synagogues were boarded up. In an extraordinary gesture, Israel left behind flourishing agricultural infrastructure worth millions, hoping it would provide Palestinians with the foundation for prosperity.

The move marked a dramatic concession: Israel relinquished land without securing anything in return. The expectation, or at least the hope, was that Palestinians, for the first time fully in charge of Gaza, might transform it into a showcase of self-governance and development.

But that vision quickly dissolved. Greenhouses and synagogues were looted and destroyed. Within a year, Hamas rose to power, and the group redirected aid into weapon stockpiles and a vast underground tunnel network rivaling the New York metro. Hamas then turned its rule inward, crushing rivals and minorities with violence, while projecting its terror outward. Over the next 18 years, tens of thousands of rockets were launched at Israeli population centres, culminating in the massacre of October 7, 2023.

Dave Gordon interviewed four Canadian-Israeli evacuees from the Gaza disengagement, who reflected upon their experience from 20 years ago, and what they think history will write about those turbulent times.

They are Carol Chezi, 69; Michael Shaul, 72; Ahavya Levy, 48; and Sody Naimer, 66. The interviews were edited for clarity and brevity.

Carol Chezi, originally from Guelph, Ont., had already been married and was living in Israel with a one year old by the time they moved to Gush Katif in 1980. At the time of the disengagement, they had six children — one married — and a granddaughter.

What did you do professionally?

I helped my husband run greenhouses and grew vegetables and sometimes flowers.

Did you have Palestinian workers?

Yeah, they made a good living. When we grew something that was more labour intensive, we’d have seven workers. Really, there was peace before the Oslo agreements (in 1993). My husband would pick the workers up at their house, and if they weren’t awake, he’d go in and wake them up. You know, go into the house and drink some tea while they were getting ready. He took one of our workers’ brothers, who was getting cancer treatments, to Tel HaShomer Hospital. He’d take the worker to go visit his brother in the hospital.

Did you feel safe in Gaza?

There was protection. There were soldiers and guard duty at night. We did not used to lock our doors in the house or even the car. But there was a gate, a fence around the community, which is why we didn’t have to lock up.

Any sort of incursions or breaches?

If you take the number of years we were there, most of the time we didn’t have any problems. Towards the end, the last three years, there were mortars shot. Towards the end it was not so safe, and the roads weren’t safe anymore.

What was the disengagement like for you and your family?

My kids stayed with my married daughter. Everybody was threatened — that if we didn’t leave by a certain date, we wouldn’t be able to take our cars out. It didn’t happen in the end. People stayed as long as they could, until the end, and were dragged out. They actually got their cars. People were told that if they didn’t leave early, the graves of their relatives wouldn’t be moved. But that never happened either. We left at the last possible minute before being pulled out physically.

I would like to say that no one left voluntarily. Some people left a bit earlier because they didn’t want their kids to experience (being taken out).

When you left, where did you go?

We spent ten months, in two hotels, that was designated for us outside of Jerusalem, and then lived in caravans. The joke was that Ariel Sharon promised all of us prefab homes, but only for people who signed up for them ahead of time. When we got a prefab, we lived in that for about eight years.

We eventually built a house in the new Netzer Hazani in central Israel.

My husband considered us too old to rebuild greenhouses and start over with farming. We never went back to being self-employed; worked at a few different things and are now retired. I imagine we’d have been better off financially if we’d still be in Gush Katif. We basically lost our livelihood.

How much compensation did you get for your home and greenhouses?

The government decided what it was worth. The house was assessed at market value, but not enough to build the same size elsewhere. We didn’t have a livelihood, so we had to live off the money they gave us for the greenhouses.

Would October 7 have happened if there was no disengagement?

I really believe that it wouldn’t have happened if we were there. Not because we were so militant, but because if you leave a place that stands empty, things start falling off, and nobody fixes them.

There were plenty of rockets fired, and they got bolder and bolder, and dug more tunnels.

I would imagine that even if October 7 had happened, with 10,000 Jews in Gaza, the casualties would be far less, because you would have several mobilized communities who would go out and do instant battle. There would have been a lot more surveillance.

Michael Shaul, originally from Toronto, is a retired agronomist and former Gush Katif settler. He detailed his arrival in Israel in 1974, his role in establishing Moshav Katif in 1978, and his contributions to cherry tomato cultivation. Shaul described the escalating violence from 1985, including murders and attacks, and the eventual disengagement in 2005. He expressed regret over the withdrawal, believing it weakened Israeli defences and emboldened terrorists, ultimately leading to the 2023 Gaza war.

What brought you to Gush Katif?

I’m one of the first people to come to Gush Katif. My settlement was the second one that was formed.

We wanted to join a group that would work on agriculture. There were two areas to consider. Yitzchak Rabin, the prime minister at the time, said we could go to the Golan Heights, or Gaza Strip, and there was no way I’d go to the Golan. In the southern part of Israel is where you grow vegetables. We eventually went to Moshav Gan Or in 1985.

What was your profession in Gaza?

I grew cherry tomatoes for export for 20 years. I set up the market in England. I’m the person that introduced the first Israeli variety of Cherokee tomato in 1986.

Did you hire local Arabs?

No one worked with more Palestinians than me. I had more Palestinians — I knew more Arabs — than any person. I had the most workers. They were from Khan Yunis.

What was the disengagement like?

I didn’t want to have confrontation with soldiers. I left five days before the disengagement. Two of my four boys were carried out by soldiers; two were already married. Obviously, they didn’t leave willingly.

My wish would have been that my sons and I work together to run the agriculture.

Afterwards, I went to a temporary settlement seven kilometres north of where I live today. It was called Nitzan Beit, and there I lived in a caravan for seven and a half years until they built the settlement that I’m living in today. It’s between Ashkelon and Ashdod.

So, people got different amounts of compensation. The farmers got two plots. Everybody else got one plot. So, I got two plots.

We were thrown to the wolves. I was a big farmer. I left with tremendous debts, because I had a lot of workers I owed money to, I had paid for seedlings and fertilizer, and I had to dry up my greenhouses well in advance. Today my house would have been worth much more because property in Israel is very valuable.

Did you know that after we got thrown out, some of my workers phoned me and said, “Please save us. We don’t have work.”

Do you think October 7 would have happened if there wasn’t any disengagement?

Of course not. A very foolish question. As long as we were in Gush Katif, there was an army presence. Naive question.

Would you return to Gaza?

Unless you have 100 per cent government support, and the Israeli army there at all times, you can’t. As long as there is a presence of radicalized Arabs in the Gaza Strip, I don’t think it is reasonable to suggest that Israelis should return. There is a great possibility of unrest and violence. No matter what the future holds, it is imperative that the IDF remains permanently in the Gaza Strip.

Ahavya Levy, was born in London, Ont., and moved to Toronto when she was seven. She moved to Israel when she was 18 and five years later moved to Gaza, where she lived for five years with her husband, Aharon, until the disengagement.

What was it like living in Gaza?

It was the most beautiful place you could imagine.

I went there for the first time ever when I was engaged. My husband-to-be was already studying there in a program in yeshiva. The sky was so blue, the sea was so blue, the weather was so perfect. The houses were beautiful. I was able to go to the oceanfront.

Were there any complications with the Gaza expulsion for your family?

We spoke to all kinds of people to let them know it shouldn’t happen. If it did, it would be more dangerous. There were rallies we went to. But we knew it was a possibility. We didn’t give up willingly.

What I did do the day before we left, is pack up my husband’s prayer books and his holy books. I had no clue if they were going to be Arabs living in my house in a week. In terms of everything else, we just left it as is, as if we were still living there. We hoped this terrible decree wouldn’t happen.

There were twenty families living with us. And the government brought two thousand soldiers to come to our community, marching in from the two entrances. They had special uniforms. And they surrounded each caravan with about 100 soldiers.

They were obviously very psychologically prepared soldiers, because I can imagine that it was devastating for them.

When they came, we locked the door, and they broke down the door. And then I stood at the door, and I said to the soldiers that I have two sons and a baby, that I was holding.

I said to the soldier, “Listen, you don’t have to do this. You could always say to your commanders, ‘I refuse to do this, because it is very, very devastating.’ And I don’t envy you, or what you’ll feel the day after.”

I then held the candlesticks that I got when I got married, from my mother-in-law, who received them from her mother-in-law, who was a Holocaust survivor. And I said, “The last time anyone in my family was ever told they had to leave their home was in the Holocaust, where all of my family, and all of my husband’s family were either murdered or told to leave home. And now, as a Jew living in a Jewish country, I have to leave home, and it’s really devastating.”

They pushed in, and a female soldier physically held our hands and took us towards the bus. We had to wait on the buses for hours in crazy summer heat.

Different communities were different. Some were easier. Some were harder. They did carry my husband to the bus, because he wouldn’t go willingly.

What happened to the rest of your belongings?

We weren’t allowed to go back after. What happened in the end is that we were taken to hotel up north, and the soldiers packed up our belongings. There was some damage. It was in boxes for like, three, four months, and some stuff got ruined. It wasn’t the worst, but other people had mold and water damage.

When you said ‘devastating’ — can you describe that?

I have friends who still feel the psychological damage today. I work in psychology, and was speaking to one of our students last night, and I asked her how she’s doing, and she’s like, “Don’t even talk to me.” She just came back from a memorial from the community that she lived in, and it was just devastating. And she lost a lot of friends living there who were murdered. I have friends who have it much harder than I did.

Was the disengagement a mistake?

I think it was a big mistake on many, many, many different levels.

Emotionally, it was a disaster. You can imagine they even dug up cemeteries.

Before us, most of it was no man’s land, not built up. Before we came there wasn’t an agricultural industry. We had schools, medical clinics, and an army presence that prevented terror from Rafah and Khan Yunis. But once we left they were able to build tunnels, smuggle weapons for twenty years. That didn’t happen when we were living there, because we had the army there.

Did you foresee that everything would go mad after the Jews left Gaza?

Yeah. You can’t make any deals with people who don’t have respect for human life, and all they want is to kill Jews. You can’t make a deal with people who haven’t kept deals before.

Sody Naimer, originally from Montreal, works in the Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He’s also a director of a clinic near Schechem, works as a pediatrician, and acts as a consultant for plastic surgery and dermatology to neighbouring physicians and clinics. While living in Gaza he invented a groundbreaking new medical bandage.

When did you arrive in Israel?

In sixth grade, and my siblings and I have been here ever since, thank goodness.

Why and when did you decide to settle in Gaza?

We were looking for rural community where our children could enjoy the expanses. So, the sand dunes and shore of Gaza seemed suitable at the time. There was no terror, no threats, there were no fences.

We sought a community with customs in line with the religious Judaism … encompassing agriculture, child rearing and growth along the breathtaking shores of the Mediterranean

We had nine children in the course of this. That was from 1988, for 16 years, until we were actually thrown out of there.

What was the disengagement like for you?

We refused to cooperate with the forces. The forces were sent to our house to uproot us.

I said, “We have absolutely no privilege by any means of law or ethics to uproot your fellow man from his livelihood, from his home. There’s no expectations of any peace agreement or any benefit that you may think. And, therefore, there’s no way that I’m going to abandon the home I built with my own hands. I’m not going to just walk out.”

And besides my wife, who was in her ninth month of pregnancy, and the little children, all the rest of us were carried out by the soldiers.

We made a point that we wouldn’t resist with any violence at all. And therefore, besides barricading the house, they had to break their way in. We were thrown in to busses.

What happened when you left?

They put our family of nine in three hotel rooms.

But you can imagine how heartbreaking it was for me, to be, for well over 10 years, the number one senior medical provider for the whole community there? You just feel hollow. I mean, there are cases that we managed, to save lives — one of a child that got a mortar shrapnel through his brain.

Today, he’s 22 years old, and he’s alive and kicking. And besides some walking disability, he has no brain deficit whatsoever.

What happened was that the terror got worse and worse until eventually we were thrown out against our will.

I actually published a paper about the evacuees, and the price they paid. There is a surge in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, including weight gain, etc. just because of the uprooting itself, which is a terrible thing to do.

When you left Gaza, would you have foreseen October 7?

There was a video clip of me all over social media lately, me held by four soldiers, holding each of my limbs. I yelled out, I cried out, exactly what was going to happen. I told everyone that you’re going to see thousands of perpetrators of terror going through the Philadelphi route, there will be missiles in Ashkelon, murder in Netivot (13 km from Sderot), there’s going to be mortars in Sderot.

I yelled at the soldiers: “You’re never going to forget this deed that you’re performing right now. You’ll have nightmares at night, and you’ll never forgive yourself.”

This clip circulates each time they lob bombs and rockets.

I said: “We’re going to be bombarded by terror acts and violence and we showed weakness.

Whenever we show weakness, this is exactly what happens.”

The only way to fight terror is with heightened force.

Should Jews return to Gaza?

There was a conference lately regarding the future of Gaza, and there are solid plans to renew the settlement; not only Gaza shore, but throughout the Gaza Strip,

It could be thriving, fulfilling, prosperous for everybody.

National Post, with files from Atara Beck

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