Against the backdrop of continued security tensions in the West Bank, the government is pressing ahead with plans to establish more settlements, with a return to the evacuated settlement of Ganim in the northern West Bank expected as soon as this summer.
As an initial step, a core group of families made up of graduates of the Bnei David pre-military academy in the settlement of Eli is expected to move to Ganim. A branch of Bnei David institutions is later expected to be established there.
Ganim was approved by the Security Cabinet in December 2025 as part of a broader decision advanced by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz to authorize 19 settlements in the West Bank, including sites evacuated during the disengagement.
In recent weeks, Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan held two visits to the site with Bnei David leaders Rabbi Eli Sadan, Rabbi Yigal Levinstein and Rabbi Yehuda Sadan, along with Amana Secretary-General Zeev Hever. Following those visits, the decision was made to establish the initial group of families at the site.
During one of the visits, Rabbi Yehuda Sadan, head of the Bnei David yeshiva in Eli, said he expected “within a few months” that a community would rise at Ganim and also at Kadim, another of the four northern West Bank settlements evacuated in the disengagement. He said the planned community would be based on yeshiva graduates and residents of Eli.
2 View gallery
Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan (center) tours Ganim
(Photo: Samaria Regional Council)
“We want there to be a community here rooted in Torah,” he said, describing a vision for both a religious study center and a civilian community that would strengthen one another.
Dagan said settlement leaders were working to dramatically increase the settler population in the northern West Bank.
“What was in northern Samaria will not return to what it was,” he said. “We are working so that there will be 20 times more civilians in Samaria. Not as a metaphor, but in practice.”
He listed Homesh, “Homesh B,” a nearby farm outpost and Sa-Nur, and said that, “with God’s help,” settlement points at Ganim and Kadim would also be renewed this summer.
The move marks another stage in what settlement leaders view as a major year of expansion in 2026. The current government has accelerated settlement approvals, including the authorization of new settlements and outposts across the West Bank, drawing criticism from Palestinian officials and many in the international community, who view settlements there as illegal under international law. Israel disputes that interpretation.
Just last Sunday, officials and activists held a ceremony marking the return to Sa-Nur after the first families arrived there. Smotrich took part in the event and thanked Katz, saying Israel was carrying out a “historic correction,” rejecting the idea of a Palestinian state and returning to Sa-Nur. Ministers and settler leaders celebrated the re-establishment of the settlement nearly 21 years after its evacuation.