Taking Matters into His Own Hands

Two years after the Gaza pullout, one man starts from scratch

AVNEI EITAN – Under the blazing Golan sun, dry wind and flies whipping through the moshav, Yuval Matzliah sits at a handmade wooden picnic table and talks about the last two challenging years since being expelled from Gaza along with 8,500 other Jewish residents of the Gush Katif settlement bloc.

“Life won’t return to what it was in Gush Katif,” he said. “But we will return there, hopefully in another year. I love this land more than I loved anything in my life.” 

Matzliah lives in a 90 square-meter (968 square-foot) temporary house, called a caravilla, on this collective farm near the Syrian border. He hasn’t found employment or received a permit to build a permanent home.

But Matzliah has taken matters into his own hands. The tables, ice cream hut and two wooden guesthouses on the moshav are his handiwork, an attempt to create jobs for both him and his neighbors. 

“I decided I had to put the past behind and take care of my children,” he said. “So I began to look for a way to make a living. The state wasn’t doing anything, so we had to look on our own and we were starting from zero.”

Avnei Eitan, a religious community, took in 22 families from Gush Katif. The government built two rows of square orange houses, one floor each with no insulation. They remain undecorated and bleak. Breaking up the monotony are the large containers in backyards holding the families’ belongings.

A year into his exile from Gaza, still living in a hotel with his wife and three daughters, Matzliah sank into depression. When their son was born—and nearly died due to complications—his wife urged him to snap out of his despair for the sake of the family.

“I’m 32, I’m still young,” Matzliah said, “Imagine someone who is 50 years old, or sick or handicapped. How does he start over? I’m living well compared to most.” 

According to a report by the Gush Katif Committee, Matzliah is right. Thirty seven percent of the settlers are still out of work, although Matzliah disputes that as too low a figure. Some 500 families are on welfare. And since many residents don’t have jobs, they are spending their compensation checks on daily needs rather than saving to build a home. Less than 1 percent of the settlers have started building permanent housing and most could be living in temporary housing for another five years.

The Ministry of Commerce says family income has decreased by 40 percent, with many receiving no income for two years. Young people face large gaps in their education, scarred from the trauma of eviction and switching schools several times.

Gaza’s Jewish communities once provided a high percentage of Israel’s agricultural produce, but of the 400 farms and other agricultural businesses that once operated in Gush Katif, only 33 have been compensated with land. 

Matzliah’s parents, immigrants from France, were some of the first people to settle in Netzer Hazani in Gush Katif 30 years ago. Matzliah worked on a cow farm there, running the milking machines. He is also an expert carpenter.

He refused his first compensation check of 50,000 shekels (about $12,000) and told the government to hold it until they are ready to give him the whole sum they owe him.

So Matzliah, which means “he succeeds” in Hebrew, built two tzimmers (popular guesthouses in the north), in order to start making a living. He employed his neighbors and their children to help him build so they could also have some work.

While the tzimmers are charming and can accommodate a family of eight, there is a glut of them in the north. Matzliah hopes people will come because they want not only a place to stay, but a fascinating story. He is shocked when Israelis tell him they wish they could trade places because of all the compensation he got from the government.

“What compensation?” he asked while soberly noting that the small falafel and ice cream business he established barely pays salaries and will do even worse when tourism hibernates in the winter.

“Think of a man who has everything—a house, money in the bank and work,” he said. “Then all of a sudden he has nothing. You can’t imagine.”