填空题
In the ruins of the Palm Beach Hotel you get a powerful sense that an era is drawing to a close that Israel"s attempt to settle its people on the Gaza Strip is in its last days.
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the fine sand in front of the beach hotel. But since the Palestinians launched their uprising against Israel the intifada—
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, Gaza has become a violent, dangerous place. People don"t come on holiday anymore. The Palm Beach resort complex was abandoned
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The reception area and the dining room have been stripped of their fixtures and fittings. The wind off the sea blows in across floors
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. A similar fate awaits everything that Israel has built here—if
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in August, as planned. Some young settlers have been squatting in the hotel as it"s decayed around them. For Elazaar Elchiam, life is good. He lives for nothing in
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The Mediterranean waves are just meters away, and Elazaar has a passion for surfing.
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in one of the nearby settlements— where red-roofed bungalows surrounded by lawns bake in the summer sun. Elazaar dreads the thought that this may well be his
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The settlers say Israel is making a mistake. That it"s handing victory to the Palestinian militants who have been attacking Gush Katif for years.
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the possibility that the settler"s homes will be treated as the spoils of victory by groups
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To prevent that, it"s possible that the army will demolish everything in the days before the Israelis leave. Debbie Rosen, a mother
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in Gush Katif, said she hates the thought of her home being destroyed. But at the same time she couldn"t bear the idea of what she called "
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" taking over the house as they celebrate Israel"s retreat. Since the Israeli army captured Gaza
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—in the Six Day War—it"s been occupied territory. When it moved civilian settlers into the Strip it was breaching the Geneva Conventions—
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. This means nothing to settlers like Debbie Rosen. She said she never thought of her home as being
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. For her, Gaza is part of the land that God promised the Jews. The occupation may mean nothing to the settlers of Gush Katif—but it means everything
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, in the Palestinian town of Khan Younis. For decades, for Palestinian families, the occupation
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and limits and humiliations in many areas of life—and it"s hated. Along the western side of Khan Younis Israeli troops man watchtowers that are part of
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And the area has seen many clashes between the army and Palestinian militants. They frequently
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on the settler communities that they see as being so symbolic of the Israeli presence. The beach used to be an escape from the heat and
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of Khan Younis. But to keep the militants out of the settlement zone, the army has blocked the Palestinian road to the sea. Khan Younis has lost its beach.