The first forced evacuation of settlers, as part of Israeli disengagement from Gaza, starts.
The Israeli disengagement from Gaza (Hebrew: , Tokhnit HaHitnatkut) was the unilateral dismantling in 2005 of the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of Israeli settlers and army from inside the Gaza Strip.
The disengagement was proposed in 2003 by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, adopted by the government in June 2004, and approved by the Knesset in February 2005 as the Disengagement Plan Implementation Law. It was implemented in August 2005 and completed in September 2005. The settlers who refused to accept government compensation packages and voluntarily vacate their homes prior to the 15 August 2005 deadline were evicted by Israeli security forces over a period of several days. The eviction of all residents, demolition of the residential buildings and evacuation of associated security personnel from the Gaza Strip was completed by 12 September 2005. The eviction and dismantlement of the four settlements in the northern West Bank was completed ten days later. 8,000 Jewish settlers from the 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip were relocated. The settlers received an average of more than US$200,000 in compensation per family.The United Nations, international human rights organizations and many legal scholars regard the Gaza Strip to still be under military occupation by Israel. This is disputed by Israel and other legal scholars. Following the withdrawal, Israel has continued to maintain direct control over Gaza's air and maritime space, and six of Gaza's seven land crossings, it maintains a no-go buffer zone within the territory, and controls the Palestinian population registry, and Gaza remains dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities.Demographic concerns retaining a Jewish majority in Israeli-controlled areas played a significant role in the development of the policy, being partly attributed to the campaign by demographer Arnon Soffer.
Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.Israeli settlements currently exist in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), claimed by the State of Palestine as its sovereign territory, and in the Golan Heights, widely viewed as Syrian territory. East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have been effectively annexed by Israel, though the international community has rejected any change of status in both territories and continues to consider each occupied territory. Although the West Bank settlements are on land administered under Israeli military rule rather than civil law, Israeli civil law is "pipelined" into the settlements, such that Israeli citizens living there are treated similarly to those living in Israel.
Israeli settlements had previously been built within the Egyptian territory of the Sinai Peninsula, and within the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip; however, Israel evacuated and dismantled the 18 Sinai settlements following the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace agreement and all of the 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip, along with four in the West Bank, in 2005 as part of its unilateral disengagement from Gaza.Israel has established Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and in the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights, both of which Israel has effectively annexed, and as such Israel does not consider the developments there to be settlements. The international community regards both territories as held under Israeli occupation and the localities established there to be illegal settlements. The International Court of Justice found the settlements to be illegal in its 2004 advisory opinion on the West Bank barrier. In the West Bank, Israel continues to expand its remaining settlements as well as settling new areas, despite pressure from the international community to desist.
The transfer by an occupying power of its civilian population into the territory it occupies is a war crime, although Israel disputes that this applies to the West Bank. On 20 December 2019, the International Criminal Court announced an International Criminal Court investigation in Palestine into alleged war crimes. The presence and ongoing expansion of existing settlements by Israel and the construction of settlement outposts is frequently criticized as an obstacle to the Israeli–Palestinian peace process by the Palestinians, and third parties such as the OIC, the United Nations, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and the European Union have echoed those criticisms. The international community considers the settlements to be illegal under international law, and the United Nations has repeatedly upheld the view that Israel's construction of settlements constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The United States for decades considered the settlements to be "illegitimate" until the Trump Administration in November 2019 shifted its position declaring "the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law."According to Peace Now, based on figures given by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics for the end of 2018, the number of settlers is 427,800, an increase of 14,400 over the prior year. B'tselem, as of 16 January 2019, estimated that 209,270 live in occupied East Jerusalem while the Foundation for Middle East Peace cites Daniel Seidemann as of late 2019 for a figure of 218,000. Population statistics for Israeli settlements in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, show c.400,000 almost exclusively Jewish citizens of Israel; East Jerusalem settlements are inhabited by over 300,000 Israeli citizens (both Jewish citizens of Israel and Arab citizens of Israel), and over 20,000 Israeli citizens live in settlements in the Golan Heights.