Settlers celebrate new housing project to double size of Mevo Dotan settlement
Only 330 people lived in the in isolated northern Samaria community, some 8 km. over the pre-1967 line, in 2014, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFUpdated: APRIL 27, 2016 10:37Former Samaria Regional Council Director-General Shlomi Warmstine and Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan symbolically shovel dirt at the Mevo Dotan cornerstone laying ceremony(photo credit: ROI HADI)
The Mevo Dotan settlement held a cornerstone laying ceremony on Tuesday for a project of 89 homes that will double the size of the small community.Only 330 people lived in the in northern Samaria community, some 8 km. over the pre-1967 line, in 2014, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.Settlers estimate that some 90 families currently reside there.Mevo Dotan is considered an isolated settlement as it is outside the West Bank security barrier.Under the 2005 disengagement, four settlements in that area were destroyed; Sa-Nur, Homesh, Ganim and Kadim, Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, said.He himself was evacuated from Sa-Nur.At the time, he said, people were eulogizing the other communities in northern Samaria such as Mevo Dotan, assuming that they would also be evacuated.Dagan added that since then the settlements in that area have grown in population.“Now we are laying the cornerstone for a new neighborhood, that will double the size of the community,” he said.The new construction, as well as the thousands of visitors who came to northern Samaria for the ceremony and other holiday festivities, were a “true victory” for the settlement movement, Dagan said.
According to the Samaria Regional Council, the project has all the necessary approvals for construction to begin as soon as the building contractors are ready.Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud), who took part in the festivities, said it was important to develop the area.It was fitting, he said, that the event was held during Passover, when the daily prayers includes the verse, “And the stone which the builders rejected became the cornerstone.”He added a modern-day prayer, “May Mevo Dotan and all the settlements in the area be the cornerstone for the growth of northern Samaria.”