The re-establishment comes roughly a year after a cabinet decision and forms part of the "Connection Plan" led by the Samaria Regional Council. The initiative envisions creating 19 new communities across northern Samaria, integrated into the broader "Million in Samaria" development program.
Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan declared: "On the 21st anniversary of the expulsion, we can stand before our people and the world and announce: We have corrected the expulsion from northern Samaria! The people of Israel are victorious!".
Dagan added that authorities are working systematically with government agencies to establish many more communities. "If four settlements were uprooted here, our answer is 18 new and flourishing settlements that will be established here in northern Samaria, with kindergartens, daycare centers, schools and roads. The people of Israel are returning to northern Samaria!" he said.
Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated that Kadim's re-establishment completes the return to all four communities evacuated from northern Samaria. "Twenty-one years after the crime of expulsion from northern Samaria, today we completed the correction, and after Homesh, Sa-Nur and Ganim, we have returned today also to the settlement of Kadim in northern Samaria", he said.
Smotrich emphasized that these communities constitute a tangible security buffer for Israel as a whole. "We were expelled from four settlements, and we will establish 19 settlements in northern Samaria", he declared.
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana referenced the repeal of disengagement law provisions that had barred Jews from returning to the area. "Four settlements were uprooted here. We have returned to all four. For me this is a particularly moving moment. I had the privilege of leading the Knesset that canceled the sections in the disengagement law that prohibited Jews from returning here", he said.
Ohana added: "Here the Zionist enterprise continues to be built, until we reach the next stage, the application of full sovereignty, which will come speedily in our days with G-d's help!"
Justice Minister Yariv Levin called the return to Kadim "a huge victory," stating: "This is a clear and decisive declaration: the Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. Our natural and historical right to the land is not subject to challenge".
Minister Ze'ev Elkin also addressed the possibility of returning to Gush Katif, the Gaza Strip settlements evacuated in 2005. "We will also remove from ourselves the disgrace of the disengagement in Gaza, in Gush Katif", said Elkin adding that the next step should be applying Israeli sovereignty to the area.
Rabbi Chaim Gantz blessed the families, saying: "This settlement is not just a settlement, it is the return of the national soul and the divine ideal". The community's rabbi, Nachshon Ben Artzi, added: "Today, we are connecting Tel Aviv and Samaria. Through the strength of the Maaleh Eliyahu Yeshiva in Tel Aviv, the settlement of Kadim is brought back to life".
Oz Tzohar, chairman of the founding group, concluded: "About 30 pioneering families answered the call of 'Here I am,' and today they are returning here in the name of the entire people of Israel, filling the settlement again with life and acting with a great sense of mission".
