Palestinians, rights group challenge plan to relocate Amona

The head of a Palestinian village and an Israeli rights group petitioned Monday against the government’s plan to move residents of an illegal West Bank outpost to nearby land, saying the alternative parcel is also privately owned.

The Yesh Din group, along with the director of the council of Silwad, the Palestinian village, issued its objection on Monday to the new legislation, which would see residents of the Amona outpost — which was built on private Palestinian land — temporarily relocated to the nearby parcel.

The new legislation will be based upon a solution proposed by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit whereby the evacuees of Amona would be housed temporarily on three plots of land administered by Israel’s Custodian for Absentees’ Property.

The organization backed its claim that the land classified as “absentee” is in fact privately owned by issuing land ownership claims on behalf of four Palestinians over two of the three plots where Amona residents are to be temporarily relocated, Army Radio reported.

The objection — issued to the Defense Ministry, which is to oversee the relocation — calls the decision a “violation of international law.”

Yesh Din also asserted that the new legislation ignores facts on the ground and would block vehicular access to sites in the area.

“The plan doesn’t specify which roads will be used to access the main sites in the area,” the petition said. “The access roads (that the plan provides) to the two main sites are meant for agriculture and not modern transportation.”

Shlomo Zaharia, the attorney who issued the petition on behalf of Yesh Din, called the move “an attempt to appease a group of criminals and land grabbers who have settled in an area that doesn’t belong to them and and have broken every existing law regarding the land.”

The Amona outpost, founded in 1995 on a hill near Ramallah in the central West Bank, is home to about 40 families. It is the largest of some 100 unauthorized outposts — built without permission but generally tolerated by the government — that dot the West Bank.

In 2008, a group of Palestinians, represented by Yesh Din, petitioned the Supreme Court, claiming Amona settlers had encroached on their land and demanded the entire outpost be dismantled. The court petition set off a protracted legal battle that saw a number of proposed evacuation dates missed and repeatedly delayed until a final ruling in 2014 ordered the state to demolish the outpost by December 25, 2016. The state also agreed to compensate the landowners with about $75,000.

Settlers there have vowed to resist the order, leading to fears of a repeat of violent clashes when homes were razed there in 2006. Officials said this week that they would ask the court to delay the order by 30 days in order to allow the state to finish preparing the alternative site.

Speaking at the Likud faction meeting in the Knesset Monday, Netanyahu said he and his party “understand the difficult plight of the residents, and we value their dedication.”

Netanyahu explained that the government sought new solutions that remained within the law in order to solve the issue.

“True, they will have to move a few dozen meters, but they will be able to remain in the area and that is very good news,” Netanyahu said.

The legislation — a revised version of a controversial bill floated by members of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party — would mean evacuees would have a place to stay near the original settlement, while their new homes are completed in another settlement in the northern West Bank. It passed its first reading in the Knesset plenum late Monday night.