JERUSALEM (RNS) — Twenty years after the Israeli government withdrew its troops and settlements from Gaza, many Israelis are still deeply torn over the decision.
From Aug. 15 through Sept. 12, 2005, thousands of Israeli soldiers and police forcibly removed about 8,600 Jewish residents from 21 settlements before razing everything but their synagogues and hothouses during what was known as the Gaza disengagement.
While most Israelis supported the withdrawal at the time, some warned it would leave a vacuum that terrorism would fill. In 2007, Hamas seized control of Gaza from its rival, Fatah, and ramped up its rocket attacks on Israel. Then, on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas infiltrated Israel, killing about 1,200 people and kidnapping 251, triggering the current war.
“At the time, there were international pressures on Israel to continue to retreat from the territory it captured in 1967,” said Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, an Israeli policy think tank, and a department chair at Shalem College in Jerusalem. “Most Israelis supported the evacuation of Gaza primarily due to demography — Gaza was populated with more than a million Arabs, with 8,000 settlers.”
Today, most Israelis see a direct correlation between the removal of army bases and the Jews who lived in …