Israeli occupation authorities will carry out a court order to demolish the wildcat Israeli settlement of Amona in the West Bank by the end of the year, Zionist Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday.
However, a proposed plan to simply move the settlement to a nearby location has raised international concern.
“I have said before and I say again to the settlers of Amona, there is a judgment of the (Israeli) Supreme Court and we shall honor it,” Lieberman said at a Jewish school in the occupied West Bank.
Amona was built on lands privately owned by Palestinians, who successfully petitioned Israeli courts for the outpost’s removal.
After repeated delays, the Supreme Court ordered the settlers’ eviction and the demolition of settlement by December 25 this year.
Last month, Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said that Lieberman’s defense ministry was working to transplant Amona residents to confiscated Palestinian land a few meters (yards) from the present site, effectively legalizing the rogue outpost.
“We proposed a lot of alternatives and I hope we can find an option that the Amona settlers will also accept,” Lieberman said on Thursday.
The United States has said it is “deeply concerned” by the relocation plan.
“This would represent an unprecedented and troubling step that’s inconsistent with prior Israeli legal opinion and counter to longstanding Israeli policy to not seize private Palestinian land for Israeli settlements,” State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said last month.
Source: AFP
