Settlers prepare barbed wire, tires to halt Beit El teardown

Jewish settlers in the West Bank settlement of Beit El set up barbed wire and prepared piles of tires to burn on Monday in preparation for a protest against a Supreme Court’s decision to demolish buildings in the settlement’s Dreinoff neighborhood, Ynet news reported.

Dozens of settlers have already arrived at the settlement, located north of Jerusalem, with more expected in the next few days to set up a tent city to prevent the Supreme Court’s orders from being carried out.

“We came to build, not to be driven out,” settlers painted on one of the buildings slated for demolition.

“With my blood, over the land of Israel I will defend,” another sign declared.

Earlier this month the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration, which manages governmental matters in the West Bank, retroactively approved the settlement’s illegal construction, but the Supreme Court rejected the motion on Sunday.

Jewish Home Knesset members and settlement leaders sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this month over reports of a de facto West Bank construction freeze, threatening in a letter to Likud members to impose sanctions on the government.

The letter was the penned after an emergency meeting last week, convened in response to claims that the PM had decided to freeze settlement development in the West Bank, as well as the Supreme Court’s decision to demolish the Dreinoff neighborhood.

The human rights organization Yesh Din filed the case with the Supreme Court to get the Dreinoff neighborhood — named after its developer Meir Dreinoff — demolished. In their petition the group wrote, “This guidance system is designed, according to its stated purpose, to try and give carte blanche to illegal building, which is being carried out on private land, with no building permission and in violation of administrative orders.”

In response, residents of Beit El told Ynet news, “We are praying that they will not demolish here.”

Others added, “More friends from Samaria and other parts of the region have arrived and we will do anything to prevent the demolition.”

“Anything means anything,” one of the protesters added.