Twenty years after they were forcibly evacuated, families from the expelled residents of Sa-Nur and young couples have coalesced as a nucleus preparing for return and rebuilding the settlement. The founding meeting took place in the office of Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, himself a former Sa-Nur resident and member of the nucleus.
Video: Twenty years after they were forcibly evacuated, families from the expelled residents of Sa-Nur and young couples have coalesced as a nucleus preparing for return and rebuilding the settlement / Credit: Samaria Regional Council
Dagan said at the meeting, "We are beginning a historic step today, the first session lasting two and a half hours of the founding nucleus of the renewed Sa-Nur settlement. The Government of Israel, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, made a strategic and historic decision to return Jewish settlement to Sa-Nur in an official, state-sponsored, and complete manner. This step is not only a correction for the expelled families or for this nucleus of families, it is a national correction," Dagan added.
According to him, "What enabled the Holocaust of October 7, which led us to horror and the continuing war, is directly the expulsion from Gush Katif and northern Samaria. The nucleus here is consolidating in the coming months, to create settlement work, community work, together with all government ministries, and the State of Israel will rebuild northern Samaria and with God's help, also Gush Katif."
Religious Zionism party chairman and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who led the government decision, blessed the move and said, "Historic correction, the return to Sa-Nur – Zionism at its best. Twenty years after the expulsion and this year is a peak year in which we established 50 new settlements in Judea and Samaria."
"We re-established Sa-Nur, and establishing this return nucleus is truly good news. We are correcting the injustice in northern Samaria, and God willing, we will also correct the injustice of the expulsion from Gush Katif. I feel the fruits of the terror that sprouted in Gaza with enormous pain – the time for correction has come," he added.
