Hours after polls closed in Israel’s election, a new community called Givat Shomron went up Wednesday morning in northern Samaria, on land that once housed the Paratrooper Brigade’s Sa-Nur training base, evacuated in 2002.
The first caravans arrived at the site early Wednesday, and founding families—graduates of Ramat Gan Yeshiva led by Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira and Rabbi Ben Zion Algazi—moved into their new homes.
3+Trucks loaded with equipment made their way to the community as families from the founding group began settling into the caravans placed on the ground.
An official ceremony is scheduled for later Wednesday, with ministers, Knesset members and public figures expected to attend, including Governor of Samaria Yossi Dagan, Ramat Gan Yeshiva president and city rabbi Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, yeshiva heads Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira and Rabbi Ben Zion Algazi, along with a large crowd and the settling families.
3+The town is being established as part of the sweeping “Reconnection Plan” led by the Samaria Regional Council. The plan includes establishing 19 new communities in northern Samaria, replacing the four communities evacuated during the 2005 disengagement, and is part of the council’s “Million in Samaria” initiative. The council is advancing the Reconnection Plan together with Amana and the Defense Ministry.
Givat Shomron is being built on the site of the former Paratrooper Brigade’s Sa-Nur training base, near Sa-Nur, which was also evacuated and has since returned. Its establishment is part of the surge in northern Samaria, which has seen ten communities go up in less than a year, following cabinet and government decisions led by Ministers Israel Katz and Bezalel Smotrich and Governor of Samaria Yossi Dagan. The move aims to strengthen Israeli presence and establish communities in this historically and strategically important area.
3+Samaria Governor Yossi Dagan arrived at the site in the morning as the caravans were brought in, and recited the “Shehecheyanu” blessing with the excited workers.
“This was the site of the Paratroopers’ Sa-Nur base, the first place evacuated in northern Samaria in 2002,” Dagan said. “We have the privilege of advancing the Reconnection Plan. Next to renewed Sa-Nur, facing renewed Noa, facing renewed Homesh, we’re placing the first caravans of Givat Shomron, which will be where the paratrooper base once stood. A huge community, with a core group from Ramat Gan, that we have the privilege of establishing. This is our Zionist answer to the evacuation—together we will raise the banner of Israel and all the people of Israel. We are here in northern Samaria on the map, forever!”
Yitzhak Elchanan Drori, a Ramat Gan resident and accomplished violinist, moved Wednesday morning with his wife and six children to settle Givat Shomron.
3+“Throughout the recent period we’ve been exposed to the tremendous revolution happening in Judea and Samaria—every settlement and outpost that went up filled our hearts with excitement,” Drori said emotionally. “We didn’t think we’d have the privilege of being part of this in the near future. But when it was announced that a new settlement was being established and a core group from the yeshiva was organizing to go up, we knew we were in.”
He added: “Everything happened around the Torah portion of Lech Lecha, and we felt that God was literally taking us to this mission—’to the land that I will show you.’ We are filled with excitement and gratitude to God who chose us for such an important and joyful mission, and we hope to see soon, God willing, this place that has waited so many years—alive, flourishing and full of families and the light of Torah.”
Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira, head of Ramat Gan Yeshiva, said during a tour of the site by families several days ago: “We waited thousands of years to get here. The Vilna Gaon fought for settling the Land and would tell his students that we need to get down to the ground, to literally build. We came here and received a second chance for northern Samaria, and we’re not missing it.”
Givat Shomron joins the surge in northern Samaria, which includes the communities of Shalem, Rehelim, Eival, Emek Dotan and Noa, alongside the renewal in Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim and Kadim, which were evacuated in the disengagement and re-established last summer.