Cabinet ministers, members of Knesset, local politicians, and hundreds of settler activists celebrated the reestablishment and repopulation of the settlement of Sa-Nur in the northern West Bank on Sunday, nearly 21 years after its evacuation under the Disengagement Plan.
Samaria Regional Council Chairman Yossi Dagan, who was among the residents evacuated from Sa-Nur in 2005, was among the 16 families who took up residence anew in the settlement on Sunday.
“Today we are making history in Samaria and effectively abolishing the terrible crime of expulsion from northern Samaria,” he said during the ceremony. “We have proven that it is possible to turn back the clock, to right an injustice even if it seems that all is lost.”
Dagan was forced to leave his home after former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s government ordered that Israeli settlements be removed from the Gaza Strip, known as Gush Katif, and the northern West Bank settlements of Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim, and Kadim.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the “historic correction” should become a “national holiday,” adding that the move was “killing the idea of the Palestinian state.”
There are plans currently awaiting approval to see 126 housing units erected in Sa-Nur.
Defense Minister Israel Katz, speaking at the ceremony, repeated earlier promises that the government was working to legalize 140 outposts. The renewed promise comes a month after 10 families repopulated Homesh.
Palestinian media, Hamas condemn settlement’s reestablishment
Palestinian Authority-run news site WAFA reported that tents had been placed near the village of Jalud, and those attending the ceremony for the new settlement performed “provocative actions targeting the local population.”
Hamas leader Mahmoud Mardawi condemned the settlement’s reestablishment, publishing in a Telegram statement that it was part it was a “dangerous escalation of Judaization.”
He called for “an escalation” of “all means of resistance to thwart and foil these projects.”
In May last year, the government approved the establishment of 22 new settlements in the West Bank, following the repeal of the Disengagement Law in specific areas.