Otzma Yehudit MK’s spokesman returns from Knesset to hear outpost home closed by IDF

Despite far-right pro-settlement parties coming into power on Thursday, the military continued to act against illegal outposts, immediately impacting at least one activist with close ties to the new government.

The Israel Defense Forces declared the West Bank hilltop on which the illegal settlement outpost of Ramat Migron stands a closed military area, just hours after the government was sworn in.

Elisha Yered, a hilltop youth activist and spokesman for Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech, who lives at the outpost, tweeted a video showing a Border Police officer serving him with a notice of the move and ordering him to evacuate as he returned from the Knesset.

“You’ve been given a reasonable amount of time of 10 minutes to leave, if you do not, you will be removed,” the officer explained, as the two argued at the entrance to his makeshift home. The officer said Yered was contacted about the matter several times before.

Yered, a married father of two, did not say whether he and his family indeed evacuated the home.

The closed military area order issued by Brig. Gen. Avi Bluth, commander of the IDF’s Judea and Samaria Division, was valid until January 29, 2023, according to the notice posted by residents on social media.

Ramat Migron, north of Jerusalem, was evacuated and demolished three times by the police and Civil Administration department of the Defense Ministry during the course of August, and was declared a closed military zone during the month of September.

“After a long day of the Knesset government swearing in, I guess someone organized a surprise for me,” Yered tweeted. “The time has come to end this persecution. We’re waiting for you, right-wing government,” he added.

https://twitter.com/elisha_yered/status/1608547217597661185

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government vaguely committed to annexing the West Bank to Israel, pledged to legalize dozens of unauthorized settlements and provide large funds for road building and public transport in the West Bank as part of its coalition deals.

Despite repeated action by Israeli authorities, radical settler youth, including Yered, have returned and rebuilt Ramat Migron several times.

The settlers have been able to swiftly rebuild their homes and other structures by use of prefabricated walls made of insulation material clad with thin metal sheets which are inexpensive and also quick and easy to turn into houses.

Three families live at the outpost, together with several youth activists involved in the area’s development, the outpost’s residents said in a statement Thursday.

“The police raided the families’ houses on the hill and threatened them that they would be arrested if they didn’t evacuate their homes within the next several minutes,” the statement read.

While the international community considers all settlement activity illegal, Israel differentiates between legal settlement homes built and permitted by the Defense Ministry on land owned by the state, and illegal outposts built without necessary permits, often on private Palestinian land.

Under the coalition agreement, the government has committed to legalizing some 70 unauthorized settlements with approximately 25,000 residents within 60 days of its establishment, through legislation if necessary, and connecting those settlements to water and electricity infrastructure.

Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.