Mohammed Mar’i
Saudi Gazette

RAMALLAH – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved advancement of expanding the Jewish settlement of Itamar by adding 538 homes, a report said Monday.

The Israeli daily Haaretz said that Barak approved the expansion in September after more than a year of pressure by the Council of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories (Yesha) following the killing of five members of the Fogel family in Itamar on early 2011. The Palestinian Authority harshly slammed the attack.

The report added that the rezoning also approves 137 homes already built in the settlement, which was set up in 1984 to the southeast of Nablus.
According to the report, the plan needs additional approval from the Defense Ministry before the construction actually begins. This week, the report added, the Israeli Civil Administration’s Supreme Planning Council will debate the plan.

Haaretz quoted Barak’s office as saying that “advancing the planning procedures for Itamar’s urban plan was approved for the purpose of regularizing the current situation on April 30, 2012. As for construction beyond what currently exists, issuing building permits requires additional approval by the Defense Ministry. At this stage there is no approval for any additional construction.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli government asked the Supreme Court to delay the evacuation of the Amona outpost, built on private Palestinian land on a hilltop north of Ramallah, by six months due to the forthcoming Israeli elections. The government had previously told the court that it would remove the settlers and dismantle the outpost before the end of the year.
The current outpost was set up on the site of a previous outpost of the same name. The original Amona outpost was evacuated in 2006 and saw some of the heaviest resistance by residents and far right Jewish activists against Israeli security forces sent to remove them. Some 200 people were injured in violent clashes with security forces, turning the site into a symbol of resistance among radical settlers.

The Israeli human rights organization, Yesh Din (There is Law), said that the government’s position was particularly disgraceful because law enforcement should not be dependent on a political timetable.