The last remaining settlement post in the West Bank, set up by a radical activist organization on Wednesday, was evacuated by police and other security services on Thursday.
Hundreds of settlers, including families with young children, flocked to a barren hill near Kiryat Arba in the southern West Bank and set up the Orot Eliezer outpost in a bid to force the government to accept new “facts on the ground” in territory the Palestinians are seeking for a future country.
By late Thursday afternoon, however, police had evacuated the entire site, loading many activists onto buses and taking them out of the area.
There are no more camps left of the seven makeshift dwellings that thousands of activist settlers from the Nachala Settlement Movement set up on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the organization said the movement’s leaders were now studying when to start the next effort to create new illegal posts, saying it could happen as early as next week or at a later stage.
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In a statement summarizing the authorities’ efforts, Defense Minister Benny Gantz praised security forces for “acting professionally and decisively over the past two days, stopping the establishment of illegal posts” in the West Bank.
He added that the fact that some lawmakers supported and encouraged such a breach of the law – referring to several members of the far-right Religious Zionism party who were on the ground with the activists – “is very serious and reprehensible”.
But it wasn’t just Religious Zionist MPs who offered support, as Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked also tweeted her support for the lawbreakers and condemned what she said was the police’s use of excessive force in detaining some of them. She was the only member of the resigned government to publicly express support for the savage operation.
In a large-scale campaign whose planning began as early as April, about 10,000 activists set up makeshift posts in seven locations in the southern, central and northern West Bank, according to Nachala.
Police and Israeli soldiers quickly dismantled most of these illegal camps by Wednesday evening, but hundreds of settler activists managed to spend the night in Orot Eliezer and began removing infrastructure at the site on Thursday morning.
According to Nachala, nearly a thousand people were present at the hilltop on Thursday morning, including 700 youths and 55 families.
Nachala shared photos and videos from the outpost, showing scores of activists at the site along with several tents and dozens of sleeping bags.
Activists cleared land on top of the hill, built rough stone walls and marked trails.
They also erected several large tents for various community activities, including a yeshiva for religious studies.
Settler activists build a kitchen in Givat Netanel’s new illegal outpost. (Screenshot courtesy of Nachala Settlement Movement)
Activists also started building a makeshift kitchen.
The venue hosted a “family event”, complete with a bouncy castle and music, as well as popcorn and cotton candy machines.
MPs Orit Strok and Simha Rothman from the far-right Religious Zionist Party arrived at the new outpost to support the initiative.
Settlers from the Nachala Settlement Movement set up tents near Kiryat Arba with the intention of establishing illegal outposts in the West Bank, July 20, 2022. (Yonathan Sindel/Flash90)
Thousands of settler activists took part in Wednesday’s operation and set up camps in seven locations, three in the Samaria region in the northern West Bank, two in the Binyamin region and two in the Judea region in the southern sector of the territory.
However, the police and the IDF quickly intervened to break up the camps and arrested five activists.
In a joint statement released Wednesday evening, the IDF and police said they were “working to prevent the establishment of illegal posts” in “several locations,” adding that the head of IDF Central Command had issued orders to close the sites in question.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked gives a press conference at the Knesset in Jerusalem on March 8, 2022. (Yonathan Sindel/Flash90)
Scores of other right-wing lawmakers from Likud and the Religious Zionism party also voiced their support as the operation unfolded.
And on Thursday morning, World Zionist Organization chairman and acting chairman of the Jewish Agency, Yaakov Hagoel, expressed admiration and support for settlement activity in general, crediting historic pre-state settlement with the renewal of Jewish life in Israel.
“Settlement is part of Zionist values, Jewish identity, aliyah, language and culture,” enthuses Hagoel, although he does not explicitly endorse Nachalo’s campaign.
Ahead of Operation Nachala, the military and police issued a joint statement warning that establishing outposts in the West Bank without the necessary permits “is illegal and prohibited” and warned that security personnel “will act to prevent illegal activities, to ensure their central mission of preventing and thwarting terrorism.
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