While military lifts ban on Israelis returning to Homesh, it will be years until they do
The head of the Israel Defence Forces’ Central Command on Thursday signed off on an order allowing Israelis to return to what was once the northern Samaria community of Homesh.
20,000 Israelis arrive at Homesh in northern Samaria on April 19, 2022. They were marching to support the rebuilding of it and three other communities that were evacuated during the Gaza disengagement of 2005. Photo by Yaron Blustein/TPS
The move paves the way for its community, which was evacuated in 2005, to return.
However, it will take years before the original 70 families — or anyone else — can move back to that area.
“Israel is changing its policy on Homesh after overturning the acts of 2005 forbidding Israelis to get in,” Eran Ben-Ari explained to the Tazpit Press Service.
Ben-Ari is a former legal advisor to the Defense Ministry on issues of Judea and Samaria. Today, he is a private sector lawyer who lives in Neve Ilan, just west of Jerusalem.
“If you look at this practically for the future, it means, the Samaria Regional Council can discuss building and planning for this area, which it couldn’t do before. Now, they can progress with plans to make a yeshiva over there legal. It’s a long process,” he told TPS.
“But now it can begin.”
In 2005, under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip. In the process, Israel also evacuated four communities in northern Samaria: Homesh, Kadim, Ganim and Sa-Nur. Those communities were declared military zones which Israelis were banned from entering.
But on March 21, the Knesset repealed the legislation prohibiting Israelis from entering. And on Thursday, on orders from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox signed the order formally declaring the Homesh area part of the Samaria Regional Council. The council represents the interests of 35 communities under its jurisdiction.
However, the military order only applies to Homesh. Technically, it remains illegal for Israelis to enter Kadim, Ganim and Sa-Nur.
What Next for Homesh?
Ben-Ari told TPS that the next step for Homesh and the Samaria Regional Council is “to find land that has no private ownership, and after they locate this land, they can start planning an educational institution on that property.”
“They can’t start a settlement now without a further resolution from the government,” Ben-Ari explained.
Asked about the possibility of legal action delaying Homesh, Ben-Ari said that “every decision can be challenged in court.” But he predicted that legal appeals would fail and at most delay matters by a few months.
“There’s no legal basis to change it,” Ben-Ari told TPS. “It won’t harm anybody. There are aspects to the disengagement plan that were very much made at the political level and not at the judicial level. Nothing will be happening on the ground for years.”
One of the reasons Homesh was a complicated issue was because when it was founded in 1978, part of it was built on privately owned Palestinian land.
The exact location of Homesh was chosen because of military needs. “It’s a strategic location. In the 1970s, it was more common to build settlements on private land if there was a strategic need. Homesh is a strategic mountain and you can see from Tel Aviv to Hadera. There was no logic to evacuating this location, in my point of view,” Ben-Ari told TPS.
Since 2005, former residents have tried on numerous occasions to rebuild Homesh, only to have structures removed by the military.
“This is part of the land of Israel. The people of Israel are yearning to go back there,” Ben-Ari said.
