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Amona supporters, security forces ready for evacuation
Preparations are under way for the eviction of residents from the West Bank outpost of Amona, as the High Court deadline looms.
Yediot Ahronot reports this morning that at least 1,000 people, mainly teenagers, have arrived in Amona in solidarity with the residents and are planning to camp there until the evacuation takes place, by 25 December.
While media reports say that Amona residents have vowed “passive resistance” to an eviction, Haaretz says that outsiders who have come to show their support to the Amona residents are preparing tyres to burn and collecting stones to throw. Haaretz also reports that Israel’s police yesterday sent written warnings to a number of right-wing activists, asking them to stay away from Amona during the evacuation.
Yediot Ahronot says that the IDF has completed most of its preparations for an evacuation. Simulations were apparently conducted last week at a southern training base. The focus is now on improving the psychological capability of soldiers to remove residents, including women and children, from their homes or the Amona synagogue.
Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said yesterday that although “there is understanding and a will to accommodate the residents of Amona as much as possible,” and that “there will be no acceptance and no tolerance of violence against IDF soldiers and members of the security forces”.
Earlier this week, Amona residents rejected a government plan to re-house them on absentee land close by and to leave the current site peacefully. They said the plan offered them no guarantees of permanent housing nearby and instead subjected their future to court decisions.
A High Court order mandates the eviction of Amona residents after ruling that the outpost was constructed illegally on private Palestinian land.
Although the government is promoting legislation to retroactively legalise a number of West Bank homes built on private Palestinian land, the bill specifically omits Amona because the coalition’s Kulanu Party refused to back legislation that explicitly disobeys a court order.