"The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has reopened partially for a few Palestinians after an 18-month closure in tandem with an added restriction to control the movement of returnees. The Israeli army has set up a checkpoint called Regavim in an area under its control outside the crossing for those entering Gaza from Egypt. As the first trickle of humanity passed through the gates on Monday, official Israeli military documents gave it a name that indicates the facility is no longer being treated as a border crossing but as an operation for population control."
"In an official statement published on its website on Sunday, the Israeli army announced the completion of what it called the Regavim Inspection Nekez. While the Israeli military frames this technical language as routine, analysts told Al Jazeera that the choice of the words Regavim and Nekez indicates Israel's long-term intentions. Al Jazeera spoke to Israeli affairs experts who argued that these terms reveal a dual strategy: invoking Zionist nostalgia to claim the land while using engineering terms to dehumanise the Palestinian people."
"For analyst Mohannad Mustafa, the name Regavim is not random; it is a deliberate ideological trigger intended to resonate with the Israeli government's far-right base. In Hebrew, Regavim means clods of earth' or patches of arable land, Mustafa explained. But it is not just a word. It is a trigger for the Zionist collective memory of land redemption. The term is inextricably linked to the Zionist children's song and poem Dunam Po Ve Dunam Sham (A Dunam Here, a Dunam There) by Joshua Friedman, which was an anthem for the early settlement movement."
The Israeli army established a checkpoint called Regavim Inspection Nekez in an area under its control outside the Rafah border crossing. The Rafah crossing reopened partially after an 18-month closure with added restrictions to control returnee movement. The name Regavim draws on Hebrew meaning 'clods of earth' and evokes the Zionist children's song Dunam Po Ve Dunam Sham associated with early settlement. The use of the name and the engineering term 'Inspection Nekez' frames the facility as an operation for population control rather than a conventional border crossing. The naming links land-claim symbolism to technical language that can facilitate land appropriation and dehumanisation of Palestinians.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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