Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces the establishment of a new West Bank settlement to replace the illegal outpost of Amona, which is currently being evacuated.
The settlement would be the first new one in some 25 years.
While Israel stopped establishing new settlements in the early 1990s, outposts set up since then have been retroactively given approval, and existing settlements have expanded their footprints, sometimes being neighborhoods of existing settlements in name only.
In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office says that he instructed a team to look into possible locations for the new settlement. The team consists of his chief of staff, representatives of the settlement movement and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s adviser for settlement affairs.
The statement says that Netanyahu a month and a half ago promised the settlers a new settlement if efforts to save Amona failed.
According to Channel 2, the new settlement will be established in a month and a half.
— Raphael Ahren
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
— Stav Levaton, military reporter
Yes, I'll join
Yes, I'll join
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
