Twenty-one years after the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and northern Samaria, a bill to repeal the Gaza disengagement law will be submitted Sunday to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation. Knesset Member Tzvi Sukkot will lead and submit the historic national bill, aimed at canceling existing restrictions and once again allowing Jews to enter parts of the territory in the Gaza Strip.
1+The move seeks to deliver historical justice and erase from the books one of the most painful wrongs etched into national memory. After last year’s completion of the historic repeal of the disengagement law in northern Samaria—which brought Israelis back to Homesh—the bill’s sponsors now want to apply the long-awaited correction to Gaza Strip territory as well.
The major test for the initiative will come early this week, when Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who chairs the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, must decide whether to approve advancing the bill and grant it government support. Political sources estimate the bill is likely to win broad backing from the right-wing camp, which views canceling the expulsion decrees as a top moral and national duty, especially at this time.
1+The bill’s sponsors emphasize this is an overdue historical correction that makes clear to the entire world that parts of the homeland are not up for transfer, and that the time has come to fix past mistakes with heads held high. The decision to bring up the bill now marks a new stage in the national struggle over the future of the Gaza region and the return of a Jewish presence to the territory from which thousands of Israelis were uprooted that painful summer.