«Israel» Settlers Reject Relocation Offer as Eviction Looms

Local Editor

"Israeli" settlers of an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank on Thursday rejected a proposal to leave voluntarily, raising fears of violence as an evacuation deadline nears.

The Amona outpost, where some 40 "Israeli" families reside, is under an "Israeli" High Court order to be evacuated by December 25 since it was found to have been built on private Palestinian land.

After recent efforts to pass a bill to legalize it failed, the apartheid "Israeli" entity presented the settlers with what it described as a way to relocate them to nearby plots.

But following a lengthy debate, the illegal settlers rejected the offer, which they said was in fact to relocate only 12 of the families to nearby plots considered available.

The other 28 families would move to temporary units in the nearby Ofra settlement as the entity sought a long-term solution, a spokeswoman for the regional Binyamin council, Eliana Passentin, told AFP.

The Amona settlers said the entity's offer, while initially sounding good, turned out to be full of holes like a "Swiss cheese."

A statement issued after 24 settlers voted in favor of the proposal and 58 rejected it said that the entity "is not committed to anything, and everything depends on multiple legal procedures with no guarantee to their success," adding that the entity is accepting them.

The statement also added that the settlers would have been willing to have their private units destroyed as well as moving from one place to the other, as long as the settlement remained on the mountain, but the proposal they received did not afford any certainty or a commitment that they would indeed have new units.

After news that the settlers rejected the proposal broke, dozens of youths began streaming to the outpost, northeast of Ramallah, overnighting in the synagogue and temporary structures in a show of solidarity.

There are concerns over how any evacuation will play out.

In 2006, the demolition of nine permanent units in the outpost led to clashes between settlers and "Israeli" security forces.

The international community considers all settlements in the occupied West Bank, including "Israeli"-annexed east al-Quds [Jerusalem], to be illegal, whether or not they are authorized by the "Israeli" entity's regime.

The "Israeli" regime differentiates between those it had approved and those it had not.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team