Settlers: IDF agreed to let us march to former settlement

Settlers planning to march on Monday to the site of Homesh - a former West Bank settlement evacuated during the 2005 disengagement - in order to resettle there, said Sunday that they have reached a "security understanding" with senior Israel Defense Forces officers.

According to the organizers, the understanding with the security forces follows IDF warnings that if the roads to Homesh is blocked, the settlers would be forced to make detours through Arab villages, some of which are hostile. Fearing this scenario, said the organizers, the IDF decided to allow the protest march.

However, the IDF on Saturday warned settlers not to execute their plan, and notified them that the penalty for resettling an area evacuated in the disengagement is two years incarceration. The police also sent a warning letter to the organizers of the operation.

The IDF asked the organizers of the operation, 'Homesh First' to promise not to stay in Homesh permanently. Organizers have refused to make this commitment.

Military sources deny having reached an agreement with the organizers. The IDF said its primary goal is to avoid the resettlement of Homesh, and said an effort would be made to block the marchers' way before they reach the site. Nevertheless, the army is taking into account the possibility that a few activists will infiltrate the area.

The march to Homesh is being organized by a non-partisan right-wing organizations that opposed the Yesha Council policy during the disengagement. Although the council does not support the operation, the Yesha Rabbinical Committee does.

According to an operational pamphlet, participants are to reach pick-up points, from which they will be transported to the community Shavei Shomron. From there, participants plan to march to Homesh on foot. The organizers instructed the participants "to bring supplies for a 48-hour stay."

Organizers also instructed participants "not to confront the security forces that have been sent by the government, but to bypass them." However, they do add that "violent policemen are criminals and you are lawfully allowed to protect yourself against them."

It is the core group of Homesh settlers that are planning to re-establish the community. The core, which is made up of 30 families, arrived in Homesh a few years before the disengagement to bring religious reinforcement to the settlement.

In a separate announcement, the Homesh core stated that "for the last year and a half the Homesh exiles have been in caravans in Shavei Shomron, tortured by the fact that their destroyed settlement is only seven minutes away."

According to the Homesh core, "the injustice in the destruction of northern Samaria was even greater than the injustice of the destruction of the Gaza settlements. The destruction of Samaria makes no sense. It did not have a political or military purpose, and the defense minister's internal political considerations are the only reason the exiled settlers have not been allowed to return home."

Boaz Ha'etzni, one of the Homesh organizers, told Haaertz that the purpose of the operation is not merely the return to Homesh, but the revival of the struggle against the disengagement.

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	Settlers holed-up in a synagogue in Homesh during the disengagement in 2005. (Archives)