By YAAKOV KATZ, JPOST STAFF
There is no point in stopping settler activists from marching to the site of the former northern Samaria settlement Homesh, Boaz Ha'etzani, one of the march's organizers, told Army Radio on Monday morning.
"Infinite forces couldn't keep us from returning [to Homesh]," he said. "We're ready for that - we've brought our heads, so they can split them open."
Turning to practical questions, Ha'etzani said that the road to Homesh was steep and marchers would not be able to carry supplies for more than 48 hours.
"After [that], we'll supply people in a more orderly fashion. There is a core group of 30 families who intend to live there - all the rest are there to help and we hope that there will be more than 5,000 people," he said.
The bloodbath that wasn't (archive)
A year since violent clashes left hundreds injured during the evacuation of Amona, right-wing activists and security forces were set to face off Monday as thousands of people are expected to try to reclaim Homesh.
The IDF and the organizers held round-the-clock negotiations Sunday night in an attempt to reach a compromise that would allow the activists to march to the former settlement - evacuated in 2005 under the disengagement plan - and possibly even spend the night there.
"We are not interested in violence," explained a high-ranking officer from the Judea and Samaria District. "The plan is to let them climb the mountain and possibly spend the night and then return."
Yossi Dagan, chief organizer of the march and a former resident of the settlement of Sa-Nur - which was evacuated alongside Homesh - denied that an agreement had been reached and said that the activists would not give up their efforts to rebuild the evacuated settlement.
"We have not reached an agreement with anyone," Dagan said. "We plan to go there and rebuild our homes. If they try to remove us, they might succeed, but in the end we will rebuild Homesh and all the other places that were evacuated."
Dagan predicted that over 2,000 people would participate in the march which was scheduled to begin from the nearby settlement of Shavei Shomron.
Calling the organizers "extremists," Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Sunday that the government would not permit the "illegal takeover" of evacuated settlements.
"We will not allow anyone to take over settlements," Peretz said during a tour of Gaza-belt communities in the South. He added that the IDF and Israel Police would deploy sufficient forces to prevent the activists from marching to the settlement.
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