Israelis who were uprooted from the community of Sa-Nur in northern Samaria during the 2005 Gaza disengagement returned on Thursday morning to prepare the area for resettlement, Channel 14 reported.
The group of evacuees cleaned up trash and repaired damage caused following the Arab takeover of the village, which is one of the two in Samaria that the Israeli government decided in May to reconstruct.
The visit was led by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who initiated the Cabinet decision three months ago and whose brother used to live in Sa-Nur—and Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, who was among those expelled from the village in 2005.
“The struggle against the expulsion was waged with great determination, and we hoped to avert that terrible folly,” said Smotrich. “Yet even then we knew that, should the expulsion sadly go through, we would one day return to every place from which we were uprooted. That is true for Gaza, and it is certainly true for Samaria,” the right-wing minister continued. “With God’s help, we will keep settling our land and work to extend full sovereignty over every part of our homeland.”
Dagan told attendees at the event: “We arrived here today and began to clean and prepare the community. We are here to return, and we will press on with all our strength until we rebuild the community.”
“We returned to Homesh; we will return to Ganim and Kadim, and we will reach Gush Katif as well,” Dagan declared, with the latter being a reference to the bloc of 17 Jewish communities in southern Gaza.
According to Channel 14, the Israel Defense Forces is planning to move a nearby military base to Sa-Nur to protect residents once the town—an enclave in an area densely populated by Palestinians—is rebuilt.
Israel’s Security Cabinet in May approved 22 new communities across Judea and Samaria, including two in northern Samaria—Sa-Nur and Homesh—that were destroyed as part of the 2005 disengagement.
The unilateral Israeli disengagement also entailed the destruction of Ganim and Kadim in Samaria’s north, in addition to 21 Gaza towns.
On March 21, 2023, Israel’s Knesset voted 31-18 to repeal parts of the law banning civilians from entering and living in the Samaria villages.
However, while the ban on dwelling in Homesh was subsequently lifted, the army has yet to green-light the return to Sa-Nur, Ganim and Kadim.
Because Jerusalem has failed to extend its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria since liberating the area in the 1967 Six-Day War, laws passed by Knesset lawmakers do not apply there until the Israeli military signs off on them.
As part of an Israeli government program announced in late May, Jerusalem intends to build thousands of housing units in Samaria’s north, including in Sa-Nur, Ganim, Kadim and Homesh.
