Right-wing Israeli protesters gather on a hill overlooking the besieged Gaza Strip, near the border fence, on July 30, 2025, during a rally marking the 20th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. (Credit: Menahem Kahan/AFP)
Far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich announced Thursday that the Sa-Nur settlement in the West Bank, evacuated by Israel in 2005, will be rebuilt.
"We are correcting the mistake of the expulsion," said the finance minister, who was accompanying a group of families preparing to settle on the ruins of this settlement in the north of the occupied Palestinian territory. "We already knew at the time that, even if the expulsion unfortunately had to take place, one day we would return to all the places from which we had been expelled. That goes for Gaza, and it's even more true here," Smotrich said.
The Israeli government decided last May on the "development" of 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, including Sa-Nur, a decision proposed by Smotrich, head of the far-right "Religious Zionism" party. "We are leading a revolution of settlement and security in Judea-Samaria [Israel’s term for the West Bank] like there hasn't been in decades," Smotrich said in a statement. Two of the 22 announced settlements, Homesh and Sa-Nur, are particularly symbolic: located in the north of the West Bank, they are actually reestablishments because they were evacuated in 2005 as part of the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip decided by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The settlement of the West Bank has continued under every Israeli government, both left and right, since the capture of the territory during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has notably intensified under the current administration, especially since the start of the war triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, by the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel.
Humanitarian convoy reaches Rmeish, Ain Ibl, Dibil despite obstacles
