Court rejects Netanyahu bid to delay Khan al-Ahmar response
The state had told the court that it wanted four months to try once again to come a resolution with the village residents to leave of their own volition.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFTHE BEDOUIN encampment of Khan al-Ahmar near Ma’aleh Adumim.(photo credit: HADAS PARUSH/FLASH90)
The High Court of Justice on Tuesday dismissed a request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay by four months proceedings with regard to the potential evacuation of the illegal Khan al-Ahmar herding village.The court set a hearing date of November 30 to discuss the petition against the village by right-wing group Regavim.At issue is a protracted legal battle concerning the fate of 180 Jahalin Bedouin, who live in a small encampment of huts and tens perched on Highway 1 in the West Bank, just below the Kfar Adumim settlement.The High Court has ruled that their presence there is illegal and has said the state could evacuate them. Netanyahu had initially said he would do so in 2018, but then delayed in part due to the protracted election cycle, and in part due to warning against the evacuation by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.Meir Deutsch, director-general of Regavim, said, “The evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar, the Palestinian Authority’s flagship case in the systematic takeover of land in Judea and Samaria, has been adjudicated in the High Court for 10 years in six different petitions we have filed.“The fact that the hearing was scheduled so quickly indicates that the High Court is unwilling to accept any further foot-dragging by Netanyahu, and is demanding real answers from the state regarding law enforcement measures against the illegal outpost known as Khan al-Ahmar,” Deutsch said.The state had told the court it wanted four months to try once again to reach a resolution with the village residents to leave of their own volition.Khan al-Ahmar residents are members of the Jahalin Bedouin tribe that Israel forcibly relocated in the early 1950s from the Negev to the West Bank, when it was under Jordanian rule. The Abu-Dahuk clan of Jahalin first moved to the site in the 1970s but has never received permission to reside there.
