DEIR EL-BALAH, Gaza Strip, 11 August 2005 — Few Palestinians will be more glad to see the back of the Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip than the family of Khalil Bashir who have seen their daily lives turned into a seemingly endless ordeal, trapped in a house which adjoins one of the doomed Jewish settlements.

The Bashir’s three-story family home, access to which is subject to draconian restrictions, is located within the confines of a security cordon around Kfar Darom, arguably the most ideological of all the 21 Gaza settlements which are due to be dismantled from Aug. 17.

“I feel like a stranger in my own home and on my own land. For the last five years I have been deprived of the simple things you need just to feel human,” the 54-year-old Bashir, who is the head teacher at a school in the Palestinian town of Deir El-Balah, told AFP. “My children have suffered most of all as they cannot even go out of the house to play,” added the father of five boys and three girls.

Despite repeated attempts by the Israeli Army and settlers over the years to drive them away since the establishment of the Kfar Darom two decades ago, Bashir has always refused to leave his home or his neighbors. The security measures around the settlement, which have grown steadily over the course of the five-year Palestinian uprising, or intifada, have gradually transformed the house into a virtual prison.

In a bid to fend off attacks by Palestinian militants living nearby, Bashir says soldiers have regularly requisitioned his rooftop for a bird’s eye view of the enemy. His children have grown up knowing few of the basic pleasures of childhood. “My house is within the boundaries of an army camp and the roof has been turned into a barracks. The army has confined me and my family to the ground floor,” said Bashir.

The building is enveloped by barbed wire. A road has been specially built by the army to allow the family to reach their home but it is only open at certain times of the day. Quite apart from the travails of every day life, the bullet holes and shrapnel scars of rocket attacks which pockmark the front of their home bear testimony to the sometimes life-threatening location.

Bashir said that he had been unable to entertain anyone at his home for years. “The Israeli restrictions prevent me from not only receiving friends and visitors but even my relatives,” he said. His wife Suad said it felt like she was living in a prison. “My nine-year-old daughter has told me that she can’t wait for the Israelis to leave so that she can play on the roof,” said the 40-year-old mother. Her 12-year-old son Mohammed said his dream was just to play football in his courtyard.

“Since the start of the intifada I have not been able to go out of the house except to go to school and I have to be back by sundown,” said the youngster. “We are going to organize a giant party after the Israelis leave. We don’t want to see them again,” he added.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s executive commission will target more than a fifth of this year’s €280 million ($345 million) aid package for the Palestinians to projects in the Gaza Strip following Israel’s pullout, it said yesterday. “We are currently preparing a package of a sum of €60 million of assistance for after the withdrawal,” EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner was quoted as saying by a spokeswoman in Brussels.

The aid, details of which remain to be hammered out, is aimed at building and rehabilitating infrastructure and strengthening Palestinian institutions after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. “I hope to see intensified cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians,” Ferrero-Waldner said, stressing that “the (European) Commission fully supports the withdrawal as an important first step.” “We need to stress however this is not the end of a story but one significant chapter on the way to a fair and comprehensive peace settlement” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she said.

Ferrero-Waldner said that the success of international support for the pullout would depend on “a significant improvement of the security and access situation, and of course a good coordination of the funding”.

“We really look to the Palestinians to make real progress in combating terrorism. ... At the same time, Israel should provide guaranteed access for the delivery of our assistance,” she said. The commission had offered “to coordinate all the EU donor effort” including that from individual member states, she added.