In recognition of 20 years since the Gaza pullout, JNS is featuring a series of articles reflecting Israel’s disengagement, speaking with an array of former Gush Katif residents to find out how they perceive the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Trump plan for the Gaza Strip and the prospect of returning.
Sitting in his backyard in the crisp nighttime air at Mount Hebron, overlooking the holy city of Hebron, Meir Dana-Picard, 45, feels at home.
After his army service, he studied at a yeshivah in Kiryat Arba, the Jewish town bordering Hebron. Then he got married to Adi, and they eventually had a dozen children. Eleven of them still live at home; his eldest, 22, lives in a caravan nearby with her husband. During the video interview (conducted in Hebrew), his youngest, 3-year-old Shalem, kept jumping on the sofa next to him, resisting sleep.
There’s no place like Kfar Darom
Twelve years ago, Dana-Picard founded the Board of Residents in Mount Hebron to advocate for Jewish security in the region. Still, as much as he believes that his home near the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs (Ma’arat Hamachpelah) represents the fulfillment of an ancient Jewish dream—and destiny—there’s no place like Kfar Darom. For him, the former Gush Katif village, which Israel gave up in 2005, is a sandy extension of Hebron, in body and spirit, although not one Jewish family lives there today.
“It was love at first sight,” Dana-Picard told JNS, recalling his first visit to what was then a farming community of about 65 families. “You get there and right away connect to the place, the atmosphere. People lived there, settled there out of religious Zionism. They would wake up early in the morning to study Torah, pray and then work in the hothouses. Then they’d go home, learn some more and be with their families.”
Dana-Picard came to Jerusalem as a toddler, the son of French olim. He and his wife officially moved to Kfar Darom in 2003, just before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced the disengagement in 2005.
A tour guide by profession, Dana-Picard has noticed how most Israelis are unaware of Gaza’s Jewish roots. Continuous Jewish settlement in Gaza dates to the Hasmonean dynasty during the Second Temple period.
Kfar Darom, specifically, is mentioned in the Talmud. In the 1930s, Jews began buying land in the region, and in 1946, a religious kibbutz was founded in Kfar Darom. The fledgling Israeli army made a strategic retreat from Kfar Darom during Israel’s War of Independence after it suffered heavy losses to the Egyptians.
In Gush Katif, Dana-Picard worked in the packaging division of Chasalat, a commercial farm well-known for its bug-free vegetables. Once it became clear that the disengagement was not just “talk,” he helped start a protest movement that began with petitions.
“We were very naive back then,” he said.
Soon enough, he and his neighbors stopped being “naive.” The community deliberately cast itself as one of the most hardline settlements. They rejected the sentimental “We Have Love, and It Will Win” slogan favored by the other settlements and instead embraced: “Kfar Darom will not fall again.” Intent on creating organized resistance, the population doubled to 1,000 souls in the summer of 2005.
“You can’t win a struggle in which you embrace the commander who’s supposed to take you out of your house,” Dana-Picard said.
This meant: No cooperation with the Israel Defense Forces or state institutions. No hugging the soldiers. No pleas to their “Jewish heart.” Protesters blocked roads, created physical barriers and punctured army jeep tires. It was in Kfar Darom that demonstrators threw buckets of paint on IDF soldiers from the barbed-wired roof of the synagogue, producing some of the most iconic images of the disengagement.
“My big regret is that we couldn’t bring our voice to lead the struggle,” he said. “We were on the sidelines.”
‘A strip of land open to all’
In 2014, during the IDF’s “Operation Protective Edge” to stem attacks from Gaza, Dana-Picard started a Hebrew Facebook page called “Going back home to Gush Katif.” He didn’t do it because he saw a personal opportunity to return, but because he believed that the only way to ensure security along the border area was to re-establish Jewish communities there.
Such an effort, back then, put him even further on the political sidelines. The Hamas invasion of Oct. 7 has made that goal much less taboo.
“Now, suddenly, you have the most far-left kibbutzniks saying: ‘It’s us or them.’ That’s a Kahanist saying—this complete lack of confidence that we can live together,” he said.
This time, if Israel returns to Gaza, Dana-Picard thinks that it must become a place where all kinds of Israelis feel at home, not just religious Zionists.
“You’ve got to think of it as a continuation of the development of the Negev,” he stated. “Open the borders; develop cities, small towns, recreational tourism and agriculture. It should be a strip of land open to all, not something closed.”
He cautiously welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump’s February announcement proposing that the United States take over Gaza and resettle its Arab residents.
“It shouldn’t be a place belonging to Trump. He’s here now, gone tomorrow. He’s not doing it as a Zionist but because it solves a problem. We must be careful not to depend on him.”
As the interview came to a close, Shalem was finally in bed. If Dana-Picard’s vision for Gaza comes true, would he pack up and move again?
“If there were a Jewish town there, I’d definitely go back,” he said. “But, of course, we’d have to take family considerations into account.”
Part I: 20 years since disengagement: How former Gush Katif residents are re-engaging with Gaza
Part II: Former Gush Katif resident Laurence Beziz: ‘We won’t say we told you so’
Part III: ‘You don’t look around for a new cemetery,’ says mother of fallen Israeli naval commando
Orit Arfa (www.oritarfa.net) is a journalist and author based in Berlin. At the time of the IDF’s 2005 pullout from Gaza, she was based in Gush Katif and covered it extensively. Her first novel, The Settler, follows its aftermath through the eyes of a young American-Israeli evacuee who “resettles” in Tel Aviv.