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Israeli farmer Avraham Ben Hamo, 53, looks at his shriveled brown tomato plants baked in the midday sun, in a dismantled greenhouse on his farm in the Bedolah settlement in Gush Katif. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners July 26, 2005 |
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Workers perched on a bare metal frame high off the ground methodically unscrewed the brackets and pulled apart the rods holding together a slowly disappearing greenhouse. A few feet away, shriveled tomato plants baked in the midday sun.
In the most concrete sign that Gaza's Jewish settlers have resigned themselves to Israel's planned pullout from the territory next month, many farmers have canceled summer plantings and begun dismantling their greenhouses.
"I see what is happening here. I don't want to invest in an unknown future," said farmer Avraham Ben Hamo.
A small, but growing number of the roughly 170 farmers working 1,000 acres (400 hectares) of land in the settlements have started packing up. A recent tour of agricultural areas in several large Jewish settlements showed increasing numbers of workers who have switched from tending crops to ripping off the plastic sheeting and netting covering the greenhouses and taking apart their frames.
"More people are beginning to prepare. For people who are farmers that's their livelihood and that's how they make their living. They have to make arrangements," said Tsvi Yosef, a former farmer living in the settlement of Ganei Tal.
International mediators are working on a compromise that would pay the farmers to leave their greenhouses here after the pullout as a resource for Palestinians. But many settlers won't wait any longer for an agreement and others can't stand the thought of Palestinians using the greenhouses.
Diana Buttu, a legal adviser to the PLO who is helping coordinate the pullout, said the issue of the greenhouses is far less important than reaching an accord with Israel that would let Gaza's Palestinian farmers export produce through Israeli ports.
Ben Hamo watched quietly as his Palestinian workers took apart one of his greenhouses. Then the burly 53-year-old looked down, covered his eyes with one hand and fell silent as the farm he spent 24 years building, vanished.
"It's hard to see your life's work destroyed in just a few minutes," he said. "My heart is breaking."
Ben Hamo, who grows organic cherry and plum tomatoes in nine acres ( 3.6 hectares) of greenhouses, had already decided not to spend the US$65,000 it would cost to plant and care for a new crop he might not be around to harvest. With nothing growing in his greenhouses, he decided to pull them down.
Ben Hamo would be happy to leave the greenhouses if he knew that his Palestinian workers would get them, but he fears Hamas militants will take his farm, he said while sitting in his office, showing off the irrigation system he can control from his desktop computer.
If or when the pullout does happen, he will drive a tractor into the office to keep it out of Palestinian hands, he said.
The Gaza farms are some of Israel's most profitable, exporting organic produce, flowers and herbs to markets in Europe.
Haim Altman, spokesman for the agency in charge of compensating and relocating the settlers, said 59 farmers are now in contact with the government about receiving replacement farmland in Israel.
But many farmers say it is too late to set up greenhouses and irrigation systems in time to plant their winter crops of herbs, peppers and cherry tomatoes next month. They are resigned to missing an entire planting season.
"This is a mess. People are confused, they don't know what to do," said Aharon Hazut, who grows tomatoes in the Gan Or settlement. "There are no solutions. We are waiting for answers."
Like many other problems in relocating the settlers, the lost season appears to be the result of poor government planning.
Altman acknowledged the lost season is a problem. "We are working on it, but I'm afraid we don't have a solution," he said.
Ben Hamo has not reached an agreement with the government for new land, so he is leaving the pieces of his greenhouses on the ground while he searches for a new farm.
He said he still believes the pullout won't happen, but he is preparing for it anyway. At a moment's notice he can reverse his plans, have the greenhouses back up in 10 days and begin preparing for his winter crop, he said.
"If the disengagement doesn't happen, it's no problem for me to plant in September," Ben Hamo said.
The AP contributed to this report.
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