It became a fortress - defended not by walls and ramparts, but by a ring of settlements, blocks of flats and highways.
Two settlements (blocks) will be considered neighbors if their corresponding Voronoi cells are neighbors (or if they are directly connected by the Delaunay triangulation).
Under the settlement, Block will provide coupons to plaintiffs for tax preparation services.
"Usually when neighbourhoods expand, they expand to create a continuous settlement block," she says.
Then the Gush Katif settlement block in southern Gaza would be dismantled and finally, three settlements in northern Gaza.
"You could have reached work long ago," reads a billboard depicting a frustrated driver, near a construction site in the Gush Etzion settlement block south of Jerusalem.
An army spokeswoman said the houses near the road to the Katif settlement block had served as cover for the attack and for other shootings by Palestinian gunmen.
The pull-out is fiercely opposed by settlers' groups: on Monday, 20,000 Israeli police and soldiers were deployed to stop them and their supporters defying a ban and marching across the border from Israel to Gaza's largest settlement block.
His wife, Nabieha, who wore a traditional black dress with purple embroidery, led me to a hill and pointed out the settlement block that has grown, year by year since 1983, to surround them.
The announcement on Sunday that the land in the Gush Etzion settlement block near Bethlehem would be expropriated – the first step towards building a significant new settlement there – has seen strong protests from the UK and European governments including France and Spain, and from Italian foreign minister Federica Mogherini, who was just appointed the EU's next foreign minister.
