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Refugees get billionaire's boost

As hundreds of thousands in the Mideast flee their homes, about 8,000 Israelis find comfort in one strange refugee camp.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published August 5, 2006

NIZZANIM, Israel - As foamy breakers crash against the powdery sand, teenagers in bikinis stroll along the beach. Younger kids bounce down huge inflatable slides while their parents relax with the morning papers.

It may be the world's most unusual refugee camp.

Since Israel and the radical Lebanese group Hezbollah began their hostilities three weeks ago, as many as 8,000 people from northern Israel have found safety from rocket attacks in a seaside tent city financed entirely by a Jewish Russian billionaire.

Refugees get three hot meals a day, with snacks in between. Sheets and towels are changed daily. Laundry is returned within 24 hours. Many of Israel's top entertainers perform live at night, near the big screens that show Israeli TV and popular movies.

"They give us treatment like in a hotel but everything is free," said Simona Alosh, who fled the city of Zefat with her husband, two children and several relatives.

The setting and amenities could not be in sharper contrast to the dire refugee situation across the border in Lebanon, where Israeli shelling and airstrikes have left thousands homeless and driven hundreds of thousands more into Syria and other countries.

At least 28 people - most of the them women and children - were killed Sunday when an Israeli missile hit an apartment building where they had taken refuge in the south Lebanese city of Qana. While calling the strike a "tragic mistake," Israel says Hezbollah was launching rockets from the area and that residents had been warned to leave.

Many, though, were too old, sick or poor to go. Others feared traveling on roads that had been heavily damaged by previous airstrikes.

In Israel, by comparison, relatively few people have lost their homes, and the death toll stands at 75, to at least 530 in Lebanon. Yet the randomness of the Hezbollah rockets has terrified residents of northern Israel, prompting many to flee to safer parts of the country.

As in Lebanon, it was largely the poor who were left behind. Financier Arcadi Gaydamak said concern for them is the reason he is spending $500,000 a day on the tent city.

"We are in war time and many thousands of people need to be in a secure situation with their children and expressions of solidarity," he said by phone from Moscow.

A banker and entrepreneur who spent part of his youth in Israel, Gaydamak, 54, is wanted in France on allegations of fraud and tax evasion stemming from an arms-for-oil deal with Angola. Here in Israel, however, he is admired for his philanthropy. Shortly before Hezbollah kidnapped two Jewish soldiers July 12, prompting Israel's massive offensive, Gaydamak donated $2.5-million to the Israeli ambulance service.

As Hezbollah rockets rained down on the north, he phoned David Nitsani, owner of an event-planning company, and told him, "Do whatever is needed as long as the danger is there," Nitsani recalled. He leased part of a beach-front national park and brought in dozens of tents, 7,000 towels, 8,000 mats and 300 fans.

Within 48 hours of Gaydamak's call, the first refugees were streaming into camp. The number quickly swelled to 5,000, including the Aloshes.

A week after the fighting started, the family left their home and restaurant business in Zefat and drove six hours south to the resort city of Eilat. But they couldn't afford to stay more than a few days because of price gouging by hotels there.

Now they sleep on foam mats in an enormous tent that can accommodate 200. They have minor complaints about long lines for meals, the stuffiness at night, the sand in the sheets. But the kids, 12 and 16, enjoy a wide range of activities, from swimming to art lessons to classes in Jewish tradition.

"It's like a summer camp, the young people are very happy here," Simona Alosh said. "They don't want to leave."

So many refugees have settled in that organizers had to open a second encampment south of the first. Serving both are a clinic, police station and synagogue.

"This is running a city, not a party or event," said Nitsani, who has moved his own offices to the beach. "I feel a huge responsibility for what goes on here.

Thus far he has dealt with lost children, a bar mitzvah and a birth. Parents and baby were moved to a hotel, at no cost to them. A kid was caught stealing a fan and, in a warning to others, a few families have been kicked out for causing trouble.

"There's been some small violence," Nitsani said. "People fight over blankets - not because we don't have enough but because they wanted four. The mentality is grab as much as you can because nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow."

Some residents of northern Israel have criticized their government for doing little to help them beyond warning them to take cover when they hear an air raid siren. The tent city has closely coordinated with Israeli police and other agencies, but gets no public money.

"The government is a little confused," Nitsani said. "In a way, they don't want to encourage people to leave their homes - the formal attitude is they should be strong and not give in to threats. But the reality is people are leaving."

Among them was a sunburned Roni Packer, 24. She and her boyfriend had been living on a kibbutz in northern Israel, near where they attend college and work as waiters in a now-deserted summer resort.

On a recent afternoon, Packer handed out towels to other refugees as Israeli F-16s roared overhead on their way to Lebanon.

"There are some problems here," she said, "but we are trying our best. In Lebanon, they can't go anywhere so we are thankful we have this place."

ONLINE GALLERY: More photos taken by Times photographer John Pendygraft at the Nizzanim refugee camp are at links.tampabay.com

REPORTER'S BLOG: Read Susan Taylor Martin's online journal at www.sptimesphotos.com/blogs/hotspots

[Last modified August 5, 2006, 01:49:42]