TPC Staff
The Palestine Chronicle / August 13, 2026
Twenty-one years after evacuating Ganim, Israel has re-established the illegal Jewish settlement near Jenin following demolitions of Palestinian buildings in the area.
Jewish settlers on Thursday reestablished the illegal Ganim settlement on Palestinian land east of Jenin, 21 years after Israel evacuated the site under its 2005 disengagement plan.
According to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, Israeli occupation forces closed entrances and secondary roads along the main route between Haddad Roundabout and the Al-Jalama military checkpoint to secure the settlers and Israeli officials participating in the move.
Among those present were Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, Knesset members and Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, which represents illegal settlements in the northern occupied West Bank.
The development effectively reverses another element of Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the northern West Bank, under which Ganim, Kadim, Homesh and Sa-Nur were evacuated.
‘Fragment the governorate’
Tareq Ighbariyeh, the official responsible for settlement affairs in Jenin governorate, warned that the return to Ganim represented a “dangerous development” that would alter the geopolitical landscape around Jenin.
He said reestablishing the settlement would “fragment the governorate,” transforming the surrounding area into something resembling a military barracks while increasing attacks and confrontations.
The settlement would also threaten geographical continuity between Palestinian communities, he warned.
Ighbariyeh said the development reflected the “growing influence of settlers and settlement councils over the extremist Israeli government” and further undermined the possibility of establishing a geographically contiguous Palestinian state.
Palestinian Buildings Demolished
The return to Ganim came only days after Israeli forces began demolishing Palestinian buildings in Jenin governorate in an operation explicitly linked by Israeli officials to renewed settlement activity.
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the demolitions around Ganim and nearby Kadim were intended to pave the way for settlers to return.
In late 2025, the Israeli government approved the reestablishment of Ganim and Kadim as part of a broader decision involving 19 illegal Jewish settlements across the occupied West Bank.
The latest move therefore marks the implementation on the ground of a policy Israel had been preparing through legislative changes, demolitions and military measures.
Israel dismantles its own 2005 withdrawal
Israel evacuated Ganim and Kadim in 2005 alongside Homesh and Sa-Nur as part of its disengagement plan, which also involved withdrawing its settlements from the Gaza Strip.
The northern West Bank component of the plan was intended to remove the four settlements and permanent military installations from the area, facilitating geographical continuity between Palestinian communities.
That policy has steadily been dismantled. In March 2023, the Israeli parliament repealed provisions preventing Israelis from entering and residing in the areas of the four evacuated settlements.
Settlers subsequently returned to Homesh, where a religious school was rebuilt. Their presence was accompanied by increased military measures, including road closures, restrictions on Palestinian farmers and the establishment of a military position.
The re-establishment of Ganim now extends that process deeper into the Jenin area.
Broader settlement and annexation drive
The move comes amid a major acceleration of Jewish settlement expansion across the occupied West Bank.
According to the latest report by the UN secretary-general, Israeli authorities advanced or approved plans for 4,750 settlement units in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, between March 14 and June 12.
On March 25, the Israeli government approved the establishment or legalization of 34 illegal Jewish settlements in Area C, which the UN report described as the largest number approved in a single Israeli government decision.
The expansion has coincided with the transfer of significant powers over the occupied West Bank’s Civil Administration to Smotrich, who has openly advocated expanding Israeli control over Palestinian territory.
For Palestinian officials, the return to Ganim is therefore not an isolated settlement initiative, but part of a wider effort to impose new territorial realities, fragment Palestinian communities and advance Israel’s de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank.
UN Security Council Resolution 2334 states that Jewish settlements established in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including occupied East Jerusalem, have “no legal validity” and constitute a flagrant violation of international law.
(QNN, WAFA, Anadolu, TPC)
