Amona Relocation Plan Gets Tentative Start

YERUSHALAYIM

The Israeli government has taken tentative steps toward relocating the forty families on the Amona outpost to nearby abandoned Palestinian property as a solution to the High Court evacuation order, The Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit gave the Defense Ministry a green light to pursue the option last week, even though the issue is still under legal review.

On Thursday morning, the office of the Custodian of Abandoned Property and the Civil Administration published a notice about plans to confiscate the property in the al-Quds newspaper. It said that any claims to land ownership in the lots indicated in an accompanying map must be submitted within 30 days.

The property lots are adjacent to Amona’s current location, on the outskirts of the town of Ofra, in the Binyamin region.
The High Court ruled in 2014 that Amona must be evacuated by the end of this year, because, it determined, it was built without permits on private Palestinian property. As the deadline drew near in recent months, right-wing MKs in the government have been urging a solution.

The proposal to use abandoned Palestinian property under existing law was advanced by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman.

The families have insisted that they will not leave their homes, but it is hoped that they will agree to the current proposal, assuming it obtains the legal clearance.

 

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