TEL AVIV, Israel — For decades, thousands of Jewish settlers lived in the Gaza Strip, protected by soldiers. But in the summer of 2005, the Israeli government made a historic decision to withdraw them all.
The Israeli prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, pushed through the unilateral withdrawal as part of a "road map" for peace advanced by what was known as the Middle East Quartet: the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.
Today, 20 years later, Israelis are fiercely debating whether that decision ultimately paved the way for the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel — and whether Israel should reestablish settlements in Gaza, as some ministers in the current government propose.
Then and now, Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories have drawn broad international criticism. The United Nations and many countries have condemned the settlements as a violation of international law, although Israel disputes this.
I was there as a young reporter in 2005, embedded with Israeli troops tasked with carrying out the evacuation of some 8,000 settlers for what became known as Israel's disengagement from Gaza.
The scenes were chaotic: Israeli settler families were weeping, soldiers were carrying children out of their homes, and young kids were running to the beach to get away from them.
Although most residents of the 21 settlements followed the official orders to evacuate by an August deadline, some refused — and Israeli troops had to force them to go.
Following the completion of the Israeli withdrawal in September 2005, Palestinians responded with scenes of jubilation, entering parts of Gaza for the first time in 38 years. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas planted a Palestinian flag in the soil of an abandoned settlement and called it "a day of happiness and joy," as NPR reported.
There was a mix of bitter emotions, too. Groups of Palestinians destroyed synagogues in Gaza that Israeli authorities, in a last-minute decision, had left standing.
"The longing only grows stronger"
Esther Kaufman-Yarhi was 13 at the time, growing up in the settlement of Netzarim, where her parents were among the founding families in the early 1970s. She remembers her life there as both idyllic and dangerous.
"It was an amazing place to grow up in — playgrounds, green spaces, a close-knit community," she says. "But always under fire ... we rode in armored cars but we knew why we were there — to protect Israel's borders."
She describes the withdrawal as an expulsion: "I stood in a circle of 13 soldiers, trying to explain to them what a mistake they were making. Eventually, they carried us out. The trauma stays with you all the time. The longing. Twenty years have passed, and the longing only grows stronger."
The disengagement came after years of Palestinian attacks on Israeli settlements, most of them carried out by Hamas. Just two years after the withdrawal, in 2007, Hamas ousted its rival Fatah in a bloody takeover of Gaza. In response, Israel imposed a blockade, with the help of Egypt, which also borders Gaza, limiting the movement of goods and people in and out of the Gaza Strip. The blockade continues today.
Kaufman-Yarhi, whose three brothers are now serving as soldiers in Gaza — near the ruins of her former home, draws a straight line between the withdrawal and Hamas' rise. "We gave up the territory, and it became a hornet's nest. If Jews had remained in Gaza, I believe Oct. 7 would not have happened," she says.
"Israel's national interest was not to be in Gaza"
Dov Weisglass, Prime Minister Sharon's closest aide at the time, helped plan the withdrawal and sees things differently. "Sharon never concealed his opinion on this matter — that the only solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is separation. In the long term, Israel's national interest was not to be in Gaza. Every casualty there — soldier or settler — was a waste," he says.
Weisglass says officials always feared Hamas might eventually seize control of Gaza. But keeping settlers there, he argues, would have been far worse. "Without disengagement, I'll tell you what would have happened. Those thousands of Israelis in Gaza would have faced an Oct. 7 scenario not in 2023, but in 2008."
He adds that Hamas was later able to strengthen itself financially — first with support from the Palestinian Authority, and then with Qatari cash that flowed with Israel's approval. That, Weisglass argues, "allowed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to build a formidable army of 40 to 50,000 fighters."
Half of Israelis support new Gaza settlements
Still, nostalgia for Gaza settlements runs deep. A recent poll in the conservative newspaper Israel Hayom found that 52% of Israelis support rebuilding settlements there. Weisglass dismisses the idea. "It's not serious. Israel doesn't have the manpower, the energy, or the resources to protect such a project. It will not happen," he says.
Yohanan Zoref, a senior Israeli researcher of Palestinian affairs at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, says the disengagement also empowered Hamas to cast itself as the victor. "They began to talk about the resistance as the main power in the Palestinian arena, because the resistance is the power who pushed out Israel from Gaza," he says.
Zoref argues that the Oct. 7 attack was less about the disengagement and more about what followed.
"If you ask me if there is any connection between the disengagement and what happened in the 7th of October, I will tell you it depends on whom you are asking, because it's a political question. From my point of view, there is no connection between the two," he says.
"Since 2009, there are governments in Israel that express their disagreement to make any kind of compromises or to reach to any kind of negotiation, and they used to say it approximately every day that there is no way to make peace."
He adds, "Also, you have to remember five years before the disengagement, more than five times the people were killed in Gaza and outside of Gaza than 10 years after the disengagement. What does it mean? It means that the existence of the settlements inside Gaza was a bigger threat on the Israeli side than after the disengagement."
"Real estate bonanza"
Throughout the Gaza war, some Israeli leaders have openly called for the resettlement of the territory, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last year it was "not realistic."
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — a hard-line opponent of the 2005 Gaza disengagement — has argued there is a "realistic work plan" for settlements there after the war. This week, Smotrich said Israel has already conducted the "demolition phase," and that a plan to turn the enclave into "a real estate bonanza" is being discussed with the Trump administration, according to news reports.
Many former Gaza settlers — like Esther Kaufman-Yarchi — cherish the hope they could return to what they call home.
"My children know that one day, we'll go back. I still keep a bottle of sand from Netzarim. The idea is to scatter it when we return home."
Unlike Weisglass, Zoref believes there's a real chance that Israel could establish new settlements in Gaza. "I think it's awful for us, but I cannot see that there is a real power that can prevent it if there will be no election in the near future. I don't think that there is any power that can change it," he says.
For now, Israelis are divided on whether that is the right move after the Gaza war — or whether it's a dangerous fantasy.
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