Gush Katif

This week in Jewish history: The 2005 Gaza Disengagement

A highly abridged weekly version of Dust & Stars – Today in Jewish History.

 OPPONENTS OF Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan face IDF troops as they secure the fence of Kfar Maimon in July 2005 after police blocked them from marching to the Gush Katif communities to protest against their demolition.
The Jerusalem Dispatch

The Jerusalem Dispatch: 20 years since disengagement

THEN-PRIME MINISTER Ariel Sharon addresses the cabinet at a meeting in 2004, ahead of a vote on approving a Gaza pullout. Let’s not forget a key cause of our ongoing disaster – Sharon’s 2005 ‘disengagement’ from Gaza, the writer charges.

The Gaza Disengagement: Sharon's strategic mistake and its cost – opinion

THE GUSH KATIF settlement where we spent most of our time was Morag – seen July 12, 2005.

Not the military experience I intended: Gaza, 2005 and 2025 - opinion


Gaza Disengagement, revisited: Sharon’s gamble, Israel’s price

Disengagement was sold not just as a diplomatic move, but as a security one. Pulling out of Gaza, Ariel Sharon argued, would save lives.

Former prime minister Ariel Sharon is seen in an archive image taken during the 1980s

Twenty years after Gaza withdrawal, threat of terror remains - opinion

The Palestinians had a chance to build a viable and flourishing presence in Gaza; instead, they opted for terrorism and hate.

Palestinians take control of an Israeli tank after crossing the border fence with Israel from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 7, 2023.

The youth of Gush Katif: The trauma, struggles of the once-teens of Israel's Gaza settlements

How a few teens dealt with the trauma of the expulsion, and where are they today?

AN IDF soldier uproots residents from their Neveh Dekalim home, Aug. 2005.

Gaza Disengagement twenty years later: A summer of changes and turbulence

Who knew then that 20 years later, Iran would be sending massive rockets, and Houthis would be blowing up ships?

MEDIA CIRCUS on the IDF’s final day, at general headquarters in Khan Yunis, Sept. 11, 2005.

It began in Neveh Dekalim: How the Gaza Disengagement led to judicial reform

For Religious Zionists, who link Torah, people, and land, the state’s bulldozers felt like a theological betrayal.

A GIRL is evacuated from Neveh Dekalim, Aug. 2005.

Shabbat Chazon: Cries of trauma, betrayal from Jerusalem and Gush Katif

Both Jerusalem and Gush Katif represent, in different ways, the spiritual and national trauma of Jewish exile and betrayal – both from without and from within.

Orange ribbons, orange balloons: Holding colored balloons during a memorial for murdered hostages Shiri Bibas and her children Ariel and Kfir, in Jerusalem, February 2025.

20 years later: Israel's lessons learned from Gush Katif and Tisha B’Av - opinion

No one could have known for certain back in 2005 what would happen next, how just two years later, Hamas would violently seize control of Gaza and that it would lead to the October 7 massacre.

SECURITY FORCES are on the scene as residents of Kfar Darom in Gush Katif resist eviction in August 2005. The writer asks: Knowing what we know now, shouldn’t we, at the very least, acknowledge the possibility that some of those protesters were right?

Ministers, MKs, settler organization demand tour of northern Gaza to explore settlement

Among the signatories calling for Defense Minister Israel Katz to facilitate a tour of north Gaza were six government ministers, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, Shlomo Karhi, and Amichai Eliyahu.

Israeli right-wing activists take part in a rally organized by settlers groups to promote Israel's resettling in Gaza, on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, near the border, July 30, 2025.

Netanyahu discussed partial Gaza annexation if hostage talks stall, source tells 'Post' - exclusive

IDF sources confirmed to the Post that senior IDF officials were kept out of the meetings and were not consulted regarding any option, or plan of annexation.

 IDF soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip, July 17, 2025.

Smotrich: Gush Katif is 'too small,' good things are about to happen in the Gaza Strip

The finance minister said he was still in the government since he had "reason to believe that good things are about to happen" in the Gaza Strip.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends a meeting of the Knesset Lobby for the Renewal of Jewish Settlement in the Gaza Strip, held at the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 22, 2025

Smotrich: IDF chief told me Israel must annex northern Gaza for 'security purposes'

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich made the claim to a conference in the Knesset on Tuesday, which discussed right-wing plans to rebuild settlement blocs across the Gaza Strip.

 (From R-L) Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, MK Zvi Sukkot, MK Limor Son Har-Melech, Settler activist Daniella Weiss, attend a Gaza settlement conference at the Knesset, July 22, 2025.