Hardline lawmakers join hundreds at abandoned settlement Homesh

Hundreds of people, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, take part in a celebratory prayer service at the site of the former settlement of Homesh in the northern West Bank, Haaretz reports.

The gathering, which is attended by far-right MKs Limor Son Har-Melech and Tzvi Sukkot, marks the first time since the Knesset pared back a law prohibiting settlement at the site that the army has allowed such a large group to make its way there.

The settlement was cleared out in 2005, but there has been growing momentum in the settlement movement, backed by government ministers, to re-establish a permanent Jewish-Israeli presence there. A makeshift yeshiva has long operated at the site.

Smotrich tweets out a video showing him and other settlement movement leaders in the center of masses of men dancing around during morning prayers.

לראות את שלושת האבות יבדל"א של עידודי זולדן, שולי הר מלך ויהודה דימנטמן הי"ד רוקדים יחד הבוקר במרכז המעגל לצלילי שירי ההלל של יום העצמאות בישיבת חומש, בהודאה על 75 שנות עצמאות ועל ביטול חוק ההתנתקות בצפון השומרון, להצטמרר, לדמוע ולשמוח. ולדעת ש"בדמייך חיי"!

קרדיט: הקול היהודי. pic.twitter.com/xJ7VqfODT8

— בצלאל סמוטריץ' (@bezalelsm) April 26, 2023

Elsewhere, the head of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council in the West Bank tells Israel National News that he hopes there will be 150,000 settlers in his area alone within 10 years, nearly double its current population of 80,000 Israelis.