Israel approves plans to rebuild Samaria town evacuated in 2005 disengagement

Plan to reestablish Israeli town in Samaria that was evacuated during the Gaza disengagement approved, paving way for its resettlement and expansion.

By World Israel News Staff

Efforts by Israel’s settlement enterprise to restore Jewish towns evacuated in northern Samaria 20 years ago took a major step forward Wednesday morning, with a national planning committee granting approval to a proposal for new housing units in the abandoned former town.

The Higher Planning Committee approved for deposit a master plan for the town of Sa-Nur in northern Samaria, granting preliminary permission for 126 housing units.

Originally established in the 1970s, Sa-Nur was home to several dozen families prior to the 2005 disengagement plan, and was home to a small artists’ colony.

Over the next two decades, settler activists attempted to resettle Sa-Nur, while Religious Zionist lawmakers pushed to overturn the disengagement law, which barred Israelis from entering parts of northern Samaria.

In May of this year, the security cabinet approved the reestablishment of Sa-Nur and a second town evacuated in 2005, Homesh.

Following the granting of approval on Wednesday for the plan, the Higher Planning Committee will give the public the opportunity to register objections, with final approval expected to come in roughly two months, enabling construction to begin.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Samaria Regional Council chief Yossi Dagan, both members of a settlement group that has pushed for the resettlement of Sa-Nur and founding members of the Homesh First organization, visited the town on Wednesday to celebrate the vote of approval.

“We are erasing the disgrace [of the disengagement] and resettling the Land of Israel,” Smotrich declared Wednesday morning.

Dagan said Wednesday’s vote was a “correction” of the evacuation 20 years earlier.

“A moment of correction, of a new beginning. The Samaria Regional Council, in all its departments, is preparing to rebuild the community.”