Gaza surfers will be forced to find new waves

Surfers sad to go
One surfer who was born in Gush Katif, but did not want his name mentioned because he works for the Israeli Ministry of Defense, was busy on a recent day helping his closest friend and neighbor pack belongings ahead of the evacuation.

“That’s how it is here,” he said, explaining why he was helping his friend pack. “The sense of community and shared responsibility is not even thought of anymore; it’s an integral part of us, of our lives here.”

He says he finds the disengagement from the territories “unbearable, I can’t believe it's happening.”

The surfer is having a difficult time grappling with the issue. “I don’t judge my friend, or anyone who plans to leave before being pulled out of their homes,” he said, “but it’s confusing and it hurts.”

In the settlement where he lives, approximately half of the people “gave up” he says, meaning that they did not want to wait to be forcibly evacuated and have begun to leave already.

“My family, isn’t packing, nor getting ready, the only box that was put aside is the family pictures box my sister prepared, and that’s it,” he said, adding that they “won’t leave until somebody knocks on out door and tells us to.”

The surfer, like many of his friends, spent a lot of his free time on the beach and is sad to see those days become a thing of the past. “We try to keep these last days closely, and enjoy them, everything is going to change now, even the closest friendships,” he explained.

Miri Yehuda / NBC News A boy wearing an orange shirt, the color marking objection to the Israeli pullout from Gaza settlements, with the slogan, "A Jew does not expel Jews," a slogan widely used by anti-pullout activists at the Neve Dekalim beach in Gush Katif.

He has no idea where he’ll be living next week, but he says he’s trying not to think about it. “I feel let down by my own country, I’m being treated like a stranger suddenly.”

Future unclear
Barda, the lifeguard, lives with his family in Pe’at Sa’deh, a relatively small settlement established in 1989 with approximately 100 residents.

Since the Pe’at Sa’deh settlement residents decided to leave together and move to the communal farming area of Mavki’im inside Israel, it is one of the few places in the Jewish settlements in Gaza where one can actually see lots of containers outside houses, and people packing up their belongings getting ready to leave. That is not the case with many of the other settlements in the area.

The Barda family has almost finished packing. “I don’t completely agree with my parents” said Barda. “I think I would have preferred to see them fighting to stay, but I’m not really in their shoes.”

Still, Barda feels very uncertain about the future. “I don’t know what will happen, I don’t know what I will do,” he said.  “I think it will take time for all of us to comprehend what this all about, it will take time.”

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