Amona evacuees worry relocation won't happen
In a letter to the Netanyahu, the settlers evacuated from Amona raise concern that temporary housing being prepared for them in Ofra will become a permanent reality, despite PM Netanyahu's promise.
Former residents of the evacuated West Bank settlement of Amona have expressed their concern that their living in Ofra will become permanent and replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's promise to find an alternative site where they could start a new settlement.
The evacuated settlers sent the letter to Netanyahu and Bayit Yehudi Leader Naftali Bennett following Netanyahu's meeting with US President Donald Trump, in which Trump asked Netanyahu to “hold back a little bit” on construction in the West Bank. In it, they claimed that the Israeli government is promoting a solution for their resettlement in a one-sided manner and is shirking its promise to build a new settlement for them as they promised.
They were also worried that the temporary housing units currently being built for them in Ofra are not as temporary as they had been promised by Netnayahu.
"It has been brought to our attention that a lease was signed between the Binyamin Council and the government's supervisor for property in Judea and Samaria, in which plot 84 in Ofra will be rented out to the council to be used by the Amona evacuees." The letter continued to say that "We oppose and reject any use for the plot on our behalf."
The former Amona residents have reportedly set their sights on land belonging to the Geulat Zion outpost in the Shiloh Valley, which is in accordance to Netanyahu's promise, that they could select the location of their new settlement. But with construction work advancing in Ofra, they fear that Netanyahu is preparing these plots as their new place of residence.
They stressed that they will not leave their temporary housing in Ofra to any place but to the area of land of their choice. "We have been left in sub-human conditions for the past two weeks. We will not leave this place until we are allotted both the temporary and permanent lands we were promised," they summarized.
Netanyahu's office has yet to respond to their letter, while Bennett's office has stated that it is not interested in responding to it.
