Jewish settlers of the West Bank outpost of Amona are preparing for a possible forced eviction, after they rejected a deal offered by the government, which aimed to ensure a peaceful removal of the settlers to a nearby post. The outpost of Amona, which according to a Supreme Court order has to be dismantled by the 25th of December because it is located on privately owned Palestinian lands, is home to some 330 Jewish settlers. The government’s failure to find a solution to the outpost raised the prospects of violence between the Jewish settlers and Israeli security forces tasked with the removal of Amona, as the residents of the illegal outpost pledged to remain in the outpost and resist its imminent eviction. “All the houses you see in Amona, it’s only ours, it’s the Israeli houses and we are going to stay and the government said we need to go and we need to leave, and all the families and all the people you can see now this morning, in the last few hours before… all the government (coming) to take all the people out from the houses. We are going to stay forever in Amona,” said Aaron Weber, Resident of Amona.
The settlers, backed by dozens of teenagers from across the West Bank and Israel, were preparing the ground for a violent confrontation with Israeli security forces. They erected barriers made of dumpsters and makeshift structures in a bid to stop the Israeli police and military who so far haven’t been seen in the area. The leader of the outpost of Amona stressed that they will conduct a vigorous and decisive fight against the uprooting of the community, emphasizing that they will not apologize for returning to the homeland of the Jewish people. “Actually we are waiting. I assume that in several hours forces will arrive to evict the community and we will conduct a vigorous and decisive fight against the uprooting of a family from its home, the uprooting of a community from its place and against hurting Jewish lives that developed in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), the cradle of the Jewish people. We returned home and we do not intend to apologies for that,” said Avichai Bo’aron, Leader of Amona.
This won’t be the first time the Amona outpost will be evicted. In 2006 Amona saw a violent eviction, with nine shacks torn down by Israeli authorities. Police at the time were confronted by thousands of settlers that attacked the officers, resulting is more than 200 people injured. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said last night that there would be no tolerance for violence against IDF soldiers or security forces. He called for all Amona residents to remove the prospect of violence from their agenda and not to endanger the settlement enterprise.