Committee hears from evacuees in Jerusalem
The State Comptroller’s Committee is asking the government and the Disengagement Authority to improve its treatment of the Gaza Strip evacuees.
“There’s a long list of problems, some of them grave, that need immediate attention,” said committee chairman MK Meli Polishook-Bloch (Shinui).
From the family that had to wait for more than four hours – in the middle of the night – for a key to their hotel room, to the family that didn’t know when their son’s remains would be dug up from the Neveh Dekalim graveyard, committee members on Tuesday heard an array of complaints from the evacuees.
The more serious complaints included an instance where children slept on the street because their hotel wasn’t prepared and a contention by evacuees that some hotels had inadequate health standards.
The committee heard all of the complaints as they toured three Jerusalem hotels – the Hyatt, the Jerusalem Gold Hotel and the Shalom Hotel. It also held a two-hour meeting at the Knesset with government representatives, including Disengagement Authority head Yonatan Bassi.
State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss said his office had 21 investigators looking into the treatment of evacuees. He urged those with complaints to contact his office.
Settlers contended that the volunteers who swarmed in to help them did more for them than the Disengagement Authority had.
In a meeting with MKs at the Hyatt Hotel in Jerusalem, a settler recounted that the authority actually referred her to a volunteer social worker rather than to their own staff when she called.
Even such basic information as a list of who was being buried this week – as 48 graves were being moved from the Neveh Dekalim cemetery – was not available, they said.
One man, Meir from Neveh Dekalim, said that from the containers that never arrived to the issue of where to send his children to school, he had not known whom to talk within the Disengagement Authority.
“Just give me one person who can address all my questions,” he said.
Rabbi Zvi Rimon of Alon Shvut said he had been brought in on a volunteer basis at the request of the Gush Katif Rabbinate just prior to the arrival of the first evacuees and had not left the Hyatt since.
He said the evacuees initially were not given full board and there were no provisions made for the displaced settlers to do laundry. The kashrut level of the kitchens was not up to the standards needed by some of them, he added.
Settlers also said the authority hadn’t understood how important it was for them to stay together as a community, noting that Neveh Dekalim residents were spread out among 13 different hotels.
Several MKs kept interrupting Bassi and wouldn’t let him finish his remarks during the Knesset meeting, particularly when he started to explain that the state had done well in its handling of the funerals.
“We spoke with the families who are in mourning, and what you are saying and what they are describing is very different,” said MK Zevulun Orlev (NRP).
A number of right-wing MKs on the committee, including Orlev, called for the creation of a national investigatory committee. At the request of Shas, the Knesset is set to debate the need for such a committee during a special plenum session on Wednesday.
Polishook-Bloch said she felt the calls were premature. She also noted a number of times during the various meetings that it was hard to totally fault the authority when many residents refused to speak with it.
“We have no faith in the authority,” said Dekla Cohen, a former Neveh Dekalim resident. A spokesman for the authority said the settlers would not be evicted from the hotels unless they had some place to go.
According to the authority, approximately 1,000 families are in hotels, some 1,200 families had applied for compensation and about 770 had received funds, although not necessarily the full sum, from the authority.
Since August 15, only 73 settlers had applied for compensation, but the authority said the count was from a few days ago and it’s likely the pace might have picked up since.
