Tapuach Family’s House Set to Be Demolished

Shomron Council head Yossi Dagan on Tuesday appealed to current and prospective government ministers to intervene to prevent the demolition of a home in the Shomron town of Tapuach. “If this house was illegally built, there are hundreds of Arab houses on nearby hilltops that were illegally built as well, and yet the government rallies itself to demolish the Jewish home and make a family with eight children homeless. This should not be happening,” Dagan wrote in a letter to ministers.

Large numbers of IDF soldiers and officials of the Civil Administration were at the site of the house, located in West Tapuach, a new neighborhood of the town established in recent years. The house in question was built on “unincorporated” land that does not belong to Tapuach, and is also not classified as state land. No alleged Arab owner has stepped forward to claim the land, either, yet according to the standards under which the Civil Administration operates, such lands are classified as “privately owned,” even if no owner has come forth.

The Srugim news site reported that officials in the town had offered the family a compromise deal that would see a new house built for them adjacent to their current home on land that is within Tapuach’s municipal boundaries, but that sources in the town administration said that the family had rejected the arrangement. The Civil Administration issued an eviction notice, which goes into effect Tuesday.

With that, Dagan appealed to ministers to intervene and stop the demolition. “The new national government that is being built now must rethink its policies on these matters, which have no place in a right-wing government. The system of evictions and demolitions must be eschewed,” Dagan wrote in his letter to ministers.