1 year after Amona outpost removal, Palestinian landowners partially return

One year on after the evacuation of the unauthorised Israeli settlement outpost Amona, Palestinian landowners have partially returned, but continue to face access restrictions.

According to Israeli NGO Yesh Din, which worked with landowners through the courts to secure the dismantling of Amona, Palestinians recently returned to their land “for the first time in 20 years”, planting “olive trees in the plots under the hill where the outpost once stood”.

However, Yesh Din noted, “the army continues to prevent the landowners from freely returning to all of their land”, using a military order, while at the same time “allowing Israelis to enter the property almost without hindrance”.

The NGO is “call[ing] upon the military to withdraw the order prohibiting the Palestinian owners from cultivating their land and to enforce the law with regard to Israeli trespassers who enter privately-owned Palestinian land.”

“The residents of Silwad, Taybeh and Ein Yabrud will continue their struggle until they are able to return and work all their land again,” Yesh Din added.

Read: Amona alternative is not new settlement, Netanyahu claims