Military stresses it has no plans to pull troops from Gaza border moshav

Emotions were running high this weekend at Moshav Netiv Haasara, on the Gaza Strip border, following reports that the Israel Defense Forces was considering withdrawing the troops that guard the community. However, the defense establishment stressed that it had no such plans.

IDF officials said the military was "constantly reevaluating operational methods, while updating the residents and cooperating fully with the local council heads," but underscored that "there is no change to the deployment of forces in the communities [on the border]."

The rumor that the soldiers would be withdrawn prompted some of the moshav residents to contact the commanders of the Gaza Division and the Northern Brigade. The residents said they strongly disapproved the step and that they intended to fight for their safety.

Over the weekend, the moshav secretariat updated the residents that the brigade commander had been persuaded to cancel the decision to withdraw the soldiers. The IDF maintains it had never decided to withdraw them in the first place.

MK Haim Jelin (Yesh Atid), who lives in a community on the Gaza border, said, "The decision to withdraw IDF troops when the underground problem [of attack tunnels from Gaza] still hasn't been solved goes against the values of Zionist and populating the country, and I welcome its cancellation."

Yifat Ben-Shushan, a resident of Netiv Haasara, added: "I'm happy that whoever made the initial decision to remove the soldiers who are defending Netiv Haasara, which is so wrong in my eyes, changed his mind quickly. Two years ago, we were facing a similar situation, only then the soldiers were withdrawn even though the decision-makers knew about the existence of the tunnels near the Gaza border."