The struggle in the Homesh outpost in northern Samaria continues, against the security apparatus’s plans to destroy the local yeshiva and close off northern Samaria to Jews. On Sunday night, more than 1,200 yeshiva students from all over the country marched to the Homesh, bypassing the army checkpoints that had been set up after the murder of Yehuda Dimentman H’yd and have since been blocking Jews from entering northern.
Homesh was evacuated and demolished under the orders of the Sharon government in 2005, as part of the “disengagement” plan which unilaterally evicted thousands of Jews from their legally established communities, mostly in the Gaza Strip but also in northern Samaria.
Earlier on Sunday, MKs Shlomo Shlomo Karhi (Likud) faction, MK Orit Strock (Religious Zionism), and Uriel Busso (Shas) arrived in Homesh together with the Dimentman family, and Yehuda’s widow and son, Etia and David Dimentman, and held a small Tu B’shvat Seder there.
The Tu B’Shvat seder was created in the 16th century in Eretz Israel by Rabbi Yitzchak Luria of Tsfat and his disciples, following the framework of the Passover seder and celebrating the Tree of Life (the Kabbalistic map of the Sephirot). Earlier, the day—which marks the New Year for the trees for the purpose of calculating their age to determine when their fruits can be harvested and taken to be eaten at the Temple—was celebrated by eating fruits.
On Sunday morning, the family went up to Yehuda’s grave, on the thirtieth anniversary of his murder.
The 1,200+ yeshiva students marched for about two hours through Arab villages, accompanied by veterans of combat IDF units carrying weapons, and conducted a festive Tu B’Shvat Seder in Homesh. The Homesh Yeshiva reported that on their way to the outpost, the marchers encountered IDF forces who tried to block their way and prevent them from reaching their destination, claiming access to Homesh was banned under the 2005 Disengagement Law. The IDF did not allow vehicles to enter the Homesh access road, so the students disembarked and bypassed the checkpoints on foot.
The Homesh yeshiva stressed that these checkpoints had not been in place on the access road to Homesh for a decade, and their presence now is a good indication of the next steps that the government and the defense establishment intend to take against the continued Jewish settlement in the area.
“In the past month, we have been saying there is an orderly plan to carry out a second disengagement at Homesh. The plan had been accepted at the political level and gained momentum with the murderous attack (1 Israeli Dead, 2 Wounded as Terrorists Open Fire Near Homesh in Samaria). We will do everything we can to prevent awarding a prize to terrorism, and to return the yeshiva to the normal life path it has led for the past 15 years – without checkpoints, and without a permanent Border Police base nearby whose purpose is to harass the Jewish settlement of Homesh.”