The Cost of Disengagement

[Guest guest]

August 11, 2005

 

The Cost of Disengagement

Press Release

Embassy of Israel

Background Facts

 

The Disengagement Plan demands a considerable sacrifice on the part

of some 1,700 settlers and their families, or about 8,000 people who

must leave the homes and livelihoods they have built over the course of

several decades.

It also represents an economic cost to the State of Israel of some $2

billion.

 

 

1. Removing 21 Jewish communities from the Gaza Strip and four from

northern Samaria means:

 

·• 42 day-care centers, 36 kindergartens, seven elementary schools,

and three high schools will be closed

 

• 5,000 schoolchildren will need to find new schools

 

• 38 synagogues will be dismantled

 

• 166 Israeli farmers will lose their livelihoods - plus some 5,000 of their

Palestinian workers will lose their jobs

 

• 48 graves in the Gush Katif Cemetery, including those of six residents

murdered by terrorists, will be exhumed and moved to Israel.

 

 

2. Disengagement will cost Israel an estimated $2 billion - about 3.5

percent of the 2005 state budget

 

• The cost of family relocation alone is estimated to be nearly $1 billion.

This will come from an annual state budget of about $59 billion.

 

• In addition, the IDF will spend some $500 million to remove military

bases and equipment from the Gaza Strip.

 

• To cite just one example of the costs entailed, the demolition and

removal of rubble from some 3,000 homes and public buildings will cost

an estimated $25 million.

 

• In the context of Israel's 2005 state budget, the estimated $2b. cost of

disengagement is equivalent to about half the country's annual health

budget or approximately one third of the budget for education.

http://www.embassyofisrael.org/articles/2005/August/2005081100.htm