Retreat in Gaza: Who will protect the residents of the Gaza envelope from the lies of the Israeli government?

In the Western Negev, life has returned to its course - and perhaps that is an understatement: in the various settlements - towns, moshavim, and kibbutzim - there is a reported surge in demand for apartments, for the verse has been fulfilled in us: "But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew" (Exodus, chapter 1, verse 12).

All this is true on the surface. As for what is in the heart, perhaps what happened tonight in Kibbutz Zikim testifies to it, a moment that exposed how thin the layer of makeup is that gave the Gaza envelope settlements a smile of revival.

Let us start with something good and real: the events of October 7 exposed the entire people of Israel, some of whom perhaps did not know this region, to the character of its residents. In many homes across the country, citizens saw the sights, heard the voices, and decided that they wanted to live with such people.

This embrace is real - and more importantly for our purposes, it did not remain just an embrace but was translated into requests to join the Gaza envelope settlements, into heartwarming moments of pure Israeli identity: try explaining to a stranger what makes a region where a terrible massacre took place a center for internal migration.

The problem is that the fundamental conditions for both the rehabilitation of the Gaza envelope with its original residents and the joining of new ones is security. Without security, there are no families, no children, no kindergartens and schools, no normal life that, while remembering the past, looks toward the future.

There will be those who say that there never was and never will be absolute security, that life in all of Israel is akin to life near a volcano. Even if we accept this image, there is a profound difference between living in a village that allows for sufficient preparation in case of an eruption compared to living near the boiling lava.

Every day is a memory

Precisely because of the character of the people of the Western Negev, it is easy to be mistaken about their mental state: apparently, they have overcome the trauma, grown from it - and returned to plow and sow, to plant and harvest, to reactivate the fertilizing and harvesting equipment as well as the production lines in the factories.

In fact, "every song is an inevitable memory"... Every false "Red Color" alarm triggers some trigger, and every alert about a terrorist infiltration into a settlement brings up the sights, sounds, and smells of that cursed day.

How can one lead a normal life, not to mention return to building, action, and growth, in such a reality? The answer is that it is impossible. To truly recover, the south-western district of the State of Israel needs security as close as possible to "absolute".

It is no coincidence that these lines are being written right now, after a weekend that reawakened the trauma in Kibbutz Zikim and in parallel with reports about a possible withdrawal of the IDF from the security zone that has grown between Gaza and Israel.

You will say that the situation is complex - and you will be right. You will say that part of the agreement that allowed the return of the hostages, about ten months ago, also included territorial concessions within the Strip - and that would be true. You will explain that it is difficult to stand against American pressure to move to the next stage of the deal that Donald Trump concocted - and the people might well understand.

However, the problem is not a kilometer more or less that will separate Gaza from the Western Negev settlements. The problem is the return to the culture of lies. To the policy of "containment", to defining fire intended to kill as "drizzle", especially after we learned that such a drizzle heralds a terrible storm.

What reawakens the horror among the residents of the Western Negev is not only the distance between them and the evildoers, but the distance between the pompous declarations of the Israeli government about "not an inch", and the reality on the ground where they are already discussing a withdrawal, in practice.

Return to October 6

Returning to the policy of October 6 is not just about the level of readiness for battle, the level of alertness, or the complacency with which intelligence is interpreted. Returning to the policy of October 6 is first and foremost a return to the policy of lies.

Residents of Zikim can leave the safe rooms, in the kibbutzim where residents have not yet returned to their homes they will continue to argue about what should be preserved and what should be rebuilt. In their hearts, they know - and with them all the new arrivals to the Gaza envelope settlements - that there is no one hundred percent security even in the center of the State of Israel.

Therefore, what they deserve is not necessarily a line in yellow, green, or blue, but a red line regarding the lies of politicians in suits or uniforms. They (and all of us) deserve to hear the truth.

Is the Israeli government (whether the current one or the one that will be formed after the elections) capable of this?