The decision completes the rollback of Israel’s uniliteral withdrawal of settlers from isolated West Bank outposts.
Israel’s government has finalized the legalization of 19 previously unauthorized settler outposts in the West Bank, undoing the evacuation of several Israeli settlements 20 years ago.
The move was announced on Dec. 21 by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who described the decision as correcting what he called a historic “injustice” for those striving for a Zionist cause and as a step to block the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“We will continue to develop, build, and settle the inherited land of our ancestors, with faith in the righteousness of our path,” Smotrich wrote on X. Smotrich grew up in a West Bank settlement and has long advocated expanding Israeli presence there and in other contested territories.
Among the newly authorized outposts are Ganim and Kadim, two former settlements that border the Palestinian city of Jenin. The area has been flagged by the Israeli military as a hotbed of terrorist activity and has been the focus of repeated raids, including an operation in April in which Israeli security forces said they killed the head of a local Hamas terrorist network.
The decision completes the rollback of the evacuation of four northern West Bank settlements: Ganim, Kadim, Homesh, and Sa-Nur, dismantled as part of Israel’s 2005 “disengagement” policy. At the time, these settlements were surrounded by Palestinian population centers and were deemed by previous Israeli governments to require more security resources than their strategic value would have justified.
In 2005, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the unilateral withdrawal of Israeli forces and settlers from Gaza, along with the evacuation of the four isolated West Bank settlements. The process involved Israeli troops bulldozing homes and forcibly evicting Jewish settlers who refused to leave.
Efforts to reverse the disengagement began in March 2023, when Israel’s unicameral parliament, the Knesset, passed an amendment to the Sharon-era disengagement law. The change allowed Israelis to access areas previously evacuated and restored certain land rights that had been revoked under the original legislation.
By Bill Pan
