Israeli government responds to petition on Homesh

Jerusalem24– Al-Quds– The Israeli government on Sunday announced that the settlement of Homesh in the northern occupied West Bank was to be evacuated. It did not give a timeframe for the evacuation.
The settlement was established in 1978 on 700 dunams of Palestinian land belonging to the nearby village of Burqa, and evacuated in 2009. Numbers of settlers however still continue to maintain a presence at the site to the present day.
According to Israeli news website Ynet, the government told the Supreme Court that the outpost was illegal and must be evacuated, without specifying a date. They claimed that “the security services are working to implement the disengagement law and the demarcation order that prevents Israelis from entering the Homesh evacuation area, taking into account all the considerations and complexities involved.”
The Israeli government considers the court has no legal role in determining the date of the eviction.
Left-wing Israeli organization Peace Now described the outpost as a “hotbed of crime and theft,” and considers the response of the Naftali Bennett government as “absurd, and tantamount to surrendering to the settlers who control 150 illegal outposts.”
Israeli NGO Yesh Din said, “Despite the state’s claim, it is important to note that military forces are allowing the presence of settlers in the Homesh settlement,”
The petition to evacuate the outpost was submitted in April 2019 and its consideration was postponed several times, with successive Israeli governments extending the deadline to respond.