Tkuma colony

Tkuma is a religious moshav located in southern occupied Palestine, northwest of Netivot. Tkuma was founded as a kibbutz on the night of October 5-6, 1946, as one of the 11 points in the Negev, at a site about one mile from its current location. The early settlers were Zionist immigrants from Eastern Europe who survived the Holocaust.

In 1949, it was relocated to its current site near the location of the depopulated Palestinian village of Al-Muharraqa. Researcher Benny Morris documents that Tkuma is situated near Al-Muharraqa, while writer Walid Khalidi notes that although Tkuma is only 2 km west of Al-Muharraqa’s site, it is located on land that once belonged to the city of Gaza.

In the 1950s, more immigrants from Eastern Europe and Tunisia joined the moshav. Tkuma is located about 5 kilometers from Gaza and has suffered damage from rockets fired by Hamas resistance fighters during the early 21st century. The moshav is protected by the “Red Alert” warning system.

A car wall was erected directly west of Tkuma, consisting of a pile of burnt vehicles serving as a memorial to the Reem Music Festival massacre that occurred on October 7, 2023. In 2022, the number of settlers in Tkuma was 724.

Sources:
Due to the scarcity of Arabic sources, Hebrew sources were used, including:

• The official Hebrew website of the settlement
• The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics
• The village of Al-Muharraqa from the Palestine Remembered website