Gush Katif

Israel grants legal status to 19 West Bank settlements, including two vacated in 2005 disengagement

The move follows government approval on Wednesday for the construction of 764 housing units across three settlements in the West Bank.

An Israeli flag flutters, with Ma'aleh Adumim is visible in the background, in the West Bank, August 14, 2025.
 OPPONENTS OF Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan face IDF troops as they secure the fence of Kfar Maimon in July 2005 after police blocked them from marching to the Gush Katif communities to protest against their demolition.

This week in Jewish history: The 2005 Gaza Disengagement

The Jerusalem Dispatch

The Jerusalem Dispatch: 20 years since disengagement

THEN-PRIME MINISTER Ariel Sharon addresses the cabinet at a meeting in 2004, ahead of a vote on approving a Gaza pullout. Let’s not forget a key cause of our ongoing disaster – Sharon’s 2005 ‘disengagement’ from Gaza, the writer charges.

The Gaza Disengagement: Sharon's strategic mistake and its cost – opinion


Smotrich: Gush Katif is 'too small,' good things are about to happen in the Gaza Strip

The finance minister said he was still in the government since he had "reason to believe that good things are about to happen" in the Gaza Strip.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends a meeting of the Knesset Lobby for the Renewal of Jewish Settlement in the Gaza Strip, held at the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 22, 2025

Smotrich: IDF chief told me Israel must annex northern Gaza for 'security purposes'

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich made the claim to a conference in the Knesset on Tuesday, which discussed right-wing plans to rebuild settlement blocs across the Gaza Strip.

 (From R-L) Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, MK Zvi Sukkot, MK Limor Son Har-Melech, Settler activist Daniella Weiss, attend a Gaza settlement conference at the Knesset, July 22, 2025.

Seven Israelis including one minor charged for breaching military zone, crossing into Gaza

The defendants were among protesters who resisted arrest, which required police and military action to remove them.

Erez crossing

Great heaviness melding with tremendous light - opinion

There is a great sense of heaviness here, as I witnessed most directly in Be’eri this week, but there is also tremendous light and hope for the future, as experienced with our brave soldiers on base.

 Photos of the destruction in Kibbutz Be'eri taken in the beginning of November 2023.

Likud to hold event in support of resettling Gaza

Some 21 towns and approximately 8,000 Israeli settlers were removed from the Gaza Strip during the 2005 disengagement.

 An image of a model of Gush Katif.

'If we stayed in Gaza, Oct. 7 wouldn't have happened,' says general who led evacuation - interview

"After the disengagement, Hamas rose to power. Before they forcibly took control of Gaza, Hamas won the elections, partly due to the disengagement," Hacohen said.

 Gershon Hacohen speaks at a conference of the Israeli newspaper "Makor Rishon", in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, March 19, 2024.

Party formed to repeal disengagement law in Gush Katif

The disengagement law, approved in 2005, led to the dismantlement of the Gush Katif settlement in the Gaza Strip. 

 OPPONENTS OF Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan face IDF troops as they secure the fence of Kfar Maimon in July 2005 after police blocked them from marching to the Gush Katif communities to protest against their demolition.

Jewish settlement in Gaza would've prevented October 7, Smotrich says

Smotrich said that if there had been Jewish settlement, Hamas would not have taken over Gaza and turned it into a giant "terror monster."

 Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks at the the The 10th Katif Conference for National Responsibility. August 5, 2024.

'Gaza is part of The Land of Israel,' former education minister says

"Today, Gaza is at the heart of the discourse in Israel. Who will rule there?"

 Signs are displayed outside a visitor's center in Nitzan near Ashod, Israel, that commemorates the former Gush Katif Jewish settlements in Gaza , August 9, 2015

Grapevine, August 3, 2024: Happy 104th, Roz!

Movers and shakers in Israeli society.

 An image of a model of Gush Katif.