21 years after Disengagement, Samaria town of Ganim resettled

Israeli families move in to the reestablished town of Ganim in northern Samaria, more than two decades after the community was uprooted as part of the Gaza Disengagement.

By World Israel News Staff

Israeli families moved into the reestablished northern Samaria community of Ganim on Thursday, 21 years after Israel evacuated and demolished the settlement as part of the 2005 disengagement, marking another major step in the government’s effort to reverse the withdrawal from four Samaria communities.

Thirty families moved to the site after dozens of prefabricated homes were brought in to accommodate residents.

A branch of the Bnei David yeshiva in Eli is also being established there.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds authority over civilian affairs in Judea and Samaria through a ministerial position in the Defense Ministry, attended the return and portrayed it as the correction of what he has long described as a historic wrong.

Smotrich said Israel was “erasing the disgrace of the expulsion” from northern Samaria, referring to the 2005 evacuation.

Ganim was one of four northern Samaria communities evacuated under then-prime minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan. Israel also removed all 21 of its towns from the Gaza Strip and withdrew its permanent military presence from the enclave under the plan.

The northern Samaria component was intended in part to create greater Palestinian territorial contiguity in the area. For nearly two decades, Israeli civilians were legally barred from returning to the evacuated sites.

That policy began to unravel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government took office.

In March 2023, the Knesset repealed portions of the Disengagement Law that prohibited Israelis from entering or residing at the four evacuated northern Samaria settlements.

The military subsequently lifted restrictions on returning to Sa-Nur, Ganim and Kadim in May 2024, after access to Homesh had already been authorized.

The government moved from permitting a return to formally rebuilding the communities over the following two years. The security cabinet approved Homesh and Sa-Nur as part of a package of 22 settlements in May 2025, and approved Ganim and Kadim in December as part of another decision establishing or recognizing 19 settlements.

Homesh was formally repopulated in March, followed by Sa-Nur in April. With families now moving into Ganim, Kadim is the only one of the four evacuated northern Samaria communities that has yet to be physically reestablished, though preparations for its resettlement are underway.

Smotrich indicated Thursday that the four former settlements form only part of a much wider expansion planned for the region.

“This summer, we are establishing 11 new communities,” he said, adding that the government intends to dramatically increase the number of Israeli communities in northern Samaria.

The government last month approved more than NIS 1 billion for access roads and security infrastructure serving dozens of newly approved communities in Judea and Samaria, including Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim and Kadim.

The NIS 1.075 billion program is to be funded through the Transportation and Defense ministries over three years.

The return to Ganim was preceded Wednesday by an Israeli operation to demolish 26 Palestinian structures near Ganim and Kadim that Israeli authorities said had been built illegally.

Smotrich described removing the construction as necessary to secure the renewed Israeli presence in the area. Palestinian media characterized the demolitions as part of an effort to clear the way for settlement expansion.

Samaria Regional Council chairman Yossi Dagan, one of the leading advocates of reversing the 2005 evacuation, said the renewed settlement would eventually be substantially larger than its predecessor.

“Today, we are bringing life back to Ganim,” Dagan said, predicting the new community would ultimately become “10 times” larger.

For Smotrich, however, the return was not presented merely as the restoration of a community dismantled two decades ago. He explicitly linked settlement expansion to preventing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

“We are strengthening the security belt,” Smotrich said, while declaring that the policy was “killing the idea of a Palestinian state.”

Smotrich argued that a permanent Israeli civilian presence in northern Samaria protects population centers inside Israel, including Afula, Hadera, Kfar Saba, Ra’anana, Herzliya and Netanya.

Smotrich made clear Thursday that he views that reversal not as the endpoint but as part of a broader transformation of Judea and Samaria.

“There is more to come,” he said.