Twelve years on, right-wing leaders return to evacuated West Bank settlement

Hundreds gather at the ruins of the evacuated Sa’nur settlement Thursday, calling on the government to allow Israelis to return to one of the West Bank communities demolished in 2005 as part of the Gaza Disengagement.

In attendance are 11 lawmakers from the Likud and Jewish Home parties, including Shuli Mualem-Refaeli and David Bitan, who co-sponsored a bill to cancel the Disengagement Law. That 2005 law empowered the government to forcibly remove Israeli residents of the Gaza Strip and made it a criminal offense to continue living in Israeli settlements in Gaza after Israel formally withdrew from the territory.

Samaria Regional Council chairman — and former Sa’nur resident — Yossi Dagan calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ensure the passing of the legislation cancelling the law. “Don’t give up on the historic opportunity to correct this injustice,” he says.

“We have come here today, 12 years since we were expelled from our homes, to make our voices heard,” Dagan says.

Addressing a young crowd, coalition chairman Bitan asserts that the decision to evacuate Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip, along with four other settlements in the northern West Bank, was a mistake. “To Gaza we cannot return, but to here we can,” he says, citing continued IDF presence in the area since the settlers were removed.