Gaza disengagement

In August 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew all military forces and dismantled all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, including the Gush Katif bloc, along with four small settlements in the northern West Bank (Samaria), under a plan championed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Around 8,000 settlers were evacuated, many forcibly, in a process that deeply divided Israeli society and split Sharon's own Likud party (leading him to form the new Kadima party shortly after). The stated goal was to reduce friction with Gaza's Arab population and improve Israel's security and diplomatic position, since maintaining scattered settlements amid more than a million Gazans had become increasingly costly to defend. In the years that followed, the vacated territory came under the control of Hamas after its violent 2007 takeover, and the disengagement is now widely debated as either a necessary step toward separation or a strategic miscalculation that enabled Hamas's buildup.