Construction masterplan for formerly-evacuated West Bank settlement gets preliminary ok

The Higher Planning Committee of the Civil Administration agency gave preliminary approval on Wednesday for a new construction masterplan for the formerly evacuated but recently re-established settlement of Sa Nur in the northern Samaria region of the West Bank.

The masterplan includes plans for the eventual construction of 126 housing units in the settlement.

The Samaria District Council, the municipal authority in which Sa Nur is located, said that the masterplan will be given final approval within two months.

Sa Nur was one of four settlements in the northern West Bank that were evacuated as part of, and in conjunction with, the 2005 Disengagement Plan from Gaza.

The evacuation of those four settlements — Ganim, Kadim, Homesh and Sa Nur — was designed to enable territorial contiguity in the region for the Palestinians and advance the 2003 Road Map for Peace initiative for bringing about a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The current government repealed the sections of the 2005 Disengagement Law that allowed for the evacuation of those settlements, and formally approved the re-establishment of all four settlements during the course of this year.

“We are eradicating the disgrace of the expulsion from northern Samaria and are settling the Land of Israel anew,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich after the preliminary approval was granted, using the biblical name for the northern West Bank.

Smotrich is also a minister in the Defense Ministry with ultimate authority over the Civil Administration, which controls all civilian matters in the West Bank, including settlement planning and construction approval, and has used these powers to greatly expand settlement construction and expansion over the last three years.

Head of the Samaria Regional Council Yossi Dagan who was one of the founders of Sa Nur and has long campaigned for its re-establishment along with the other three northern Samaria settlements described the preliminary approval as “a moment of historic correction” which he and others “dreamt of and struggled for 20 years to rectify the injustice and crime of the expulsion and destruction of the settlements in northern Samaria.”

Earlier in the week, the head of the IDF’s Central Command Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth approved the new boundary jurisdiction for Homesh as part of the government’s approval of the re-establishment of the settlement.

Bluth also approved boundary jurisdictions for another seven settlements, which were all either newly approved settlements or existing illegal outposts.

“We are advancing de facto sovereignty on the ground [over the West Bank] in order to prevent any possibility of the establishment of an Arab state in Judea and Samaria,” said Smotrich.

The current government has expanded the settlement enterprise at an unprecedented rate during its three years in office, establishing, legalizing or setting in motion the legalization of 69 new settlements according to the government; appropriating large tracts of land; ignoring the creation of dozens of illegal outposts; and approving massive construction plans in the West Bank settlements.

According to the Peace Now organization, fully 174 illegal settlement outposts have been established during the term of the current government.