News / Palestine

Israeli court rejects plea to keep controversial West Bank settlement

Monday, 14 November 2016 5:23 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 14 November 2016 6:27 PM ]

This file photo shows a view of illegal Amona settlement outpost in the central part of the occupied West Bank.

Israel’s Supreme Court has dismissed a petition by Tel Aviv to delay the evacuation and demolition of an illegal Israeli settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank beyond a late December deadline.

The high court ruled on Monday that the evacuation of Amona, located northeast of Ramallah in the central West Bank, “must occur before December 25” and rejected the delay requested.”

The Israeli regime had sought a seven-month delay irrespective of an earlier ruling in 2014 by the Supreme Court that Amona was constructed on private Palestinian land, and must be razed.

“The duty to obey rulings is not a matter of choice. It is an essential component of the rule of law to which all are bound,” the court further pointed out on Monday.

The Monday verdict on Amona came a day after Israel’s ministerial committee for legislation approved a draft bill, which would retroactively legalize unlawful settlements.

The legislation states that the Tel Aviv regime can order the confiscation of privately owned Palestinian land in exchange for compensation.

In order to be enacted, the bill still needs three readings in parliament and ratification in the Supreme Court.

The Israeli anti-settlement Peace Now group has censured the draft legislation, with its director Hagit Ofran saying it is “a shame” that Israel is backing "a law that will allow the confiscation of privately owned Palestinian land in order to build settlements.”

More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

The continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle to the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

The Palestinian Authority wants the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinians state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.

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