Residents from two of the four northern Samaria communities destroyed during the 2005 Disengagement are planning to rebuild at least one of them - Homesh.



The small community nestled in the Samaria hills was destroyed and its residents forced out of their homes by Israeli government forces in August 2005 in accordance with then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal – the so-called Disengagement – from Gaza and northern Samaria.



Since that traumatic event more than a year and a half ago, a large percentage of the expellees are still jobless and without permanent homes. Promises of fair compensation for the loss of their homes and businesses have not been fulfilled, leaving many families feeling frustrated, angry, and hopeless.



The expulsion resulted in many children and not a few adults experiencing a personal “disengagement” of their own, leading to numerous marital, occupational, educational and mental health problems as well.



The residents of the Shomron communities of Sa-Nur and Homesh in particular, however, vowed to return and rebuild their homes, not in a new region but rather on the site of their destroyed community. At least two Knesset Members and five organizations are involved in the plans to return to Homesh, which is scheduled to take place on March 26, a week before the Passover holiday.



Professors for a Strong Israel, Komemiut (Upright), Maginei Eretz (Defenders of the Land), HaLev HaYehudi (The Jewish Heart) and Mateh Tzafon (Northern Headquarters) organizations have banded together to support the determined activists. A memorandum calling on members to prepare for the event echoes warnings that recall the days before IDF soldiers came to force the residents out of their homes: “The struggle might be long, but we must persevere and cannot back down.” 

Visions of orange emerge from the depths of recent memory, including spiritual snapshots of volunteers handing out “day-glo” strips of orange cloth, orange and blue flags hanging from windows throughout Yesha, and Gush Katif residents and volunteers wearing bright orange shirts that reminded others, hopefully, that “Jews don’t evict Jews!”



The fight for the communities that were eventually destroyed was long physically, legally and emotionally. Thousands of letters, emails, news talk shows, magazine and newspaper articles and legal briefs bombarded the Prime Minister’s Office and the Knesset – but in the end, thousands of government troops pulled thousands of Jews from their homes.



“Our task [now] is to recruit as many people as possible – youth, families, adults – by the scores, to prepare each person’s plans ahead of the Passover so that they include the return to Homesh, and to persuade as many people as possible to join in,” reads the memorandum.



The event is a repeat of one that took place in December 2006 when the evicted residents first returned to the ruins of their homes to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Chanukah. Men, women and children brought Chanukah sufganiyot (Israeli jelly doughnuts) and menorahs on their pilgrimage, carried out in partial coordination with the IDF - though roads to the area were sealed off and declared to be closed military zones.

At that time, organizers stated clearly that the event marked the first step of the long-range plan to rebuild the communities that were emptied of Jews by IDF soldiers and Border Guard police, as well as Yassam and other Israel Police officers in August 2005 as part of the unilateral disengagement from Gaza.



Homesh residents also told reporters during the holiday that they will continue to make pilgrimages to the community and will begin to build there "in the very near future." At that point they had already formed a core group of 25 families, adding that they would welcome any others who cared to join in the resettlement and rebuilding.



The activists on the Chanukah march also cited testimony by General Security Services (Shabak) chief Yuval Diskin before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last August as proof of the need to repopulate the area with Jews. “Northern Samaria has turned into Islamic Jihad-land,” Diskin told the Knesset Members, “due to the lack of a permanent military presence there.”



With the expulsion of the Jews from the northern Samaria communities, the IDF has no longer had a reason to maintain a full-time presence in the area. Nonetheless, the sites have remained under the control of Israeli security forces which may in the future be called upon to secure the site against its former Jewish inhabitants.



Organizers of the renewed effort to rebuild Homesh warn in their memorandum that their plans will present a major headache for the Olmert administration, which is likely to oppose the move with a show of force.



The return to Homesh, it said, “will not be handed to [us] on a silver platter. Homesh is a nightmare for the government.”