Looters are having a field-day in Yamit, removing everything portable or semi-portable from houses abandoned by their former owners and not taken over by squatters or soldiers.
Bedouin and other Arab workers employed by the Jewish Agency continued their work of dismantling houses and form equipment throughout the Sabbath yesterday, despite denials by the government that any work was being done on the Sabbath. But while they were at work other Sinai Bedouin, and Jews from other parts of Israel, were stripping the houses of saleable items such as wood, floor and wall tiles, piping and electric wire and fittings.
Soldiers who camped in vacated houses, astensibly to prevent them from being taken over by squatters, tore down doors and window frames to build bonfires.
In houses taken over by squatters, and in makeshift shelters in farm villages around Yamit, members of the movement to halt the withdrawal from Sinai were planting crops as though they were certain of a long and prosperous future there. A war memorial was taken over and fortified by a group of students. The army has not indicated when troops will be sent to remove them.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
