Tiyul

Just in case you were wondering, Tiyul is the hebrew word for trip or going hiking. So the past few days we have been traveling Israel. On Sunday we went to a museum on the Israeli Occupation in 2005. Usually I don't do well with museums because I can never focus, but this was very interesting and I learned so much even though the majority of it was in hebrew. Basically until 2005, Israel occupied Gaza in the same way that it occupied the West Bank. That included Israeli military bases and settlements, communities of Jews living inside Palestinian territory. In 2005, Israeli Prime minister Ariel Sharon decided to withdraw from Gaza.

"Sharon, a longtime hawk and skeptic of Palestinian independence, had concluded that the Israeli occupation was no longer in Israel's interest. Sharon withdrew Israeli outposts and uprooted about 10,000 settlers. It was a hugely controversial move inside Israel, particularly on the political right — the current Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, quit the government in protest. Sharon left control of Gaza to a united Palestinian Authority, governed by the moderate Fatah party from Ramallah, in the West Bank. But that's not actually how things worked out — Hamas quickly became the dominant power in Gaza. That means that Palestinians in Gaza aren't just physically separated form those in the West Bank, they're governed separately as well."

I knew about all this, but I never knew the details to it all. This is just a brief explanation for it, but I can't imagine being kicked out of my home and being forced to move somewhere else. I was also in Israel that year when it was going on. I remember I was young and all the protests going on for it, but I never knew what it was for. Now, its been 9 years and I finally understand. I remember that every one was handing out neon orange strings and we had many of them. We attached them to all our suitcases and we still have them. It's crazy to think all this time later that I would finally understand what it was for and it was actually a huge deal.

After all this, we went to the beach for a little bit and then out to eat for hamburgers in a city called Ashdod. Ashdod is about 30-45 minutes south of Tel-Aviv. They were the best hamburgers ever! Overall, it was an eventful day!

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/16/5904691/hamas-israel-gaza-11-things