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Ex-Israel chief military prosecutor lives in home built on privately-owned Palestinian land

May 3, 2018 at 11:48 am

Construction workers build illegal settlements in West Bank on 25 August 2017 [Wisam Hashlamoun/Apaimages]

A former chief Israeli military prosecutor lives in a house in the West Bank settlement of Efrat “which was illegally constructed on private Palestinian land”, it has been revealed.

According to anti-occupation NGO Kerem Navot, Lieutenant Colonel Morris Hirsch served as the chief military prosecutor in the West Bank until about a year and a half ago, “and was responsible for legal proceedings against thousands of Palestinians each year”.

In addition, “since his release, he has been employed as a ‘military consultant’ by the right-wing organisation NGO Monitor”.

Kerem Navot has now revealed that Hirsch not only lives in a West Bank settlement, but his house is located on privately-owned Palestinian land.

Read: House price boom in illegal West Bank settlements

An Israeli company says it bought the land “from some Arabs”, but have no evidence to prove the claim. This did not prevent Israeli authorities “from allowing the company to advance a master plan on site and to authorise the two illegally constructed housing units, in one of which Hirsch resides”.

Kerem Navot said it is “ironic” that an individual “who was responsible for the rotten prosecution system that Israel runs in the West Bank for several years, currently lives in a house that was built solely due to the very same rottenness that pervades the law enforcement system in its entirety”.