Gaza Border Reality Tour from Tel Aviv

Come join Abraham on an unforgettable tour where you’ll explore the Gaza-Israel conflict, its history and its impact on the people living on both sides of the border. Departing from Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, we’ll head south to the Gaza Border region via the ‘Via Maris’, the ancient coastal trade route connecting Egypt to Mesopotamia.

In the fields of Kibbutz Nachal Oz, we’ll gaze into the Palestinian neighborhood “Shuja’iyah,” where the biggest battle of the 2014 Gaza war took place, and then view the closed Karni Crossing cargo terminal. Then we’ll visit Be’erot Yitzhak, a kibbutz destroyed in the ’48 war, and learn about the Israeli narrative of settlement and sacrifice in the Western Negev, creating the borders of the future state.

We will then visit an Israeli border community, religious Kibbutz Alumim for lunch among the kibbutzniks. In Alumim we’ll see the kibbutz synagogue, visit a display of decommissioned rockets, observe from a distance and then approach to see the Iron Dome Missile defense system up close.

We’ll then visit the towns of Netivot and Sderot, where we’ll witness the heritage of Israelis of North African descent at the tomb of the “Baba Sali,” a Moroccan Jewish saint. In Sderot, we’ll stop on the rooftop of the ‘Hesder Yeshiva’ and get a view of the city, being able to see the Hebron hills in one direction and the rooftops of Gaza City in the other.

Then we’ll visit the ruins of “Deir Sneid”, a Palestinian village emptied in the 1948 war, whose former residents fled to Gaza, framing a discussion of the “Nakba”, the Palestinian narrative of 1948.

Then we visit the Erez Border Crossing, the only place where citizens of Gaza, for work, trade, or medical care, can enter Israel. We’ll chat with some of the Gazan workers to hear the human side of life in Gaza.

The day will wrap up with a visit to Netiv Ha’asara, a ‘moshav’ on the northern Gaza border. At the ‘Nativ L’Shalom’ center, we’ll watch a film featuring the story of, or meet in person, a mother from the region who will share her story about the reality of living so close to Gaza. Then we join in the “Path to Peace” project to transform the anti-sniper wall by placing ceramic tiles with our own peace messages in a mosaic on the wall.