Knesset bill filed to repeal 2005 Disengagement Law
The bill would allow settlers to rebuild the four demolished Samaria settlements of Sa-Nur, Homesh, Gaddim and Kadim.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFSettlers at a protest rally on the ruins of the Sa-Nur settlement in Samaria.(photo credit: TOVAH LAZAROFF)
Parliamentarians on Tuesday filed a bill to repeal all portions of the 2005 Disengagement Law that authorized the territorial withdrawal from Gaza and the demolition of 25 settlements that August.The only portions of the law that would be retained would relate to the compensation to the 10,000 settlers who lived in the 21 Gaza settlements and the four in northern Samaria that were destroyed.The move comes as Israel marks 15 years since the Disengagement, the first steps of which were executed on August 15, 2005.“Fifteen years after the horrible and terrible foolishness off the evacuation from Gush Katif and northern Samaria and the destruction of that wonderful part of the country, the time has come to correct that mistake,” said MK Bezalel Smotrich (Yamina), who is one of the initiators of the bill along with Coalition chairman Miki Zohar (Likud).It is presumed that even if the bill were to pass, it couldn’t lead to Israelis returning to Gaza, given that Israel withdrew militarily and the territory is now ruled by Hamas.Pragmatically, the implication of the bill would be to open the door to allowing settlers to rebuild the four demolished Samaria settlements of Sa-Nur, Homesh, Gaddim and Kadim.Israel did not withdraw territorially from the area where those settlements were located, but the Disengagement Law did place that area within a closed military zone to prevent settlers from returning.“This bill, which would repeal Disengagement, would pave the way, first and foremost, for the re-establishment of the four destroyed settlements in northern Samaria,” Smotrich said.He added that, in the end, “we will rebuild Gush Katif anew, because there are errors that must be corrected.”Similar bills have been filed in the past, but they have never been advanced.
Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, who is himself an evacuee from Sa-Nur, has long pushed for the Samaria communities to be rebuilt.This time around, there is an increased pressure to move forward on the issue because the territory in question is outside the boundaries of US President Donald Trump’s sovereignty map of the West Bank.That map, which is part of Trump’s peace plan, allows Israel to annex up to 30% of the West Bank, effectively placing half of Area C under Israeli sovereignty.But it designates the rest of it for a future Palestinian state, including the land where the four demolished Samaria settlements once stood.
