Five Palestinian farmers sue Israel

Monday October 06, 2008 22:41 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli sources reported on Monday that five Palestinian farmers, supported by the Yesh Din Israeli human rights group, filed a lawsuit against Israel for not evacuating an illegal settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank.

File - An Illegal settlement outpost

The outpost, Migron, was illegally installed by the settlers on lands privately owned by Palestinian villagers.

 Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported that the plaintiffs are demanding Israel NIS 1.5 million for damage caused to the livelihood of the villagers due to the illegal outpost which was supposed to be evacuated one year ago in accordance to a commitment by the Israeli government.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the plaintiffs by Yesh Din to the Magistrate Court in Jerusalem on Monday.

Dror Etkes of Yesh Din said that the Palestinians decided to launch legal proceedings against Israel after waiting years for the government to evacuate the outpost but the government never did so.

 He added that dozens of dunams of Palestinian orchards are now seized by the settlers and the Palestinian villagers cannot cultivate them.

“The Palestinians waited for Israel to implement the court’s decision of evacuating the outpost”, Etkes added, “but instead the army is protecting the outpost, and now the owners decided to turn to the court to exercise their rights”

Haaretz reported that in August of this year, the Israeli Defense Ministry reached an agreement with the Yesha Settlement Council to evict the illegal outpost and relocate the settlers in a West Bank settlement, but the agreement was never implemented.

The US-backed Road Map Peace Plan, and the Annapolis Peace Summit of 2007, calls on Israel to halt all settlement activities in the occupied West Bank as these settlements and outposts are built on Palestinian owned lands.

All Israeli settlements are built in the Palestinian territories Israel illegally captured in 1967, according to the international law, all settlements are subject to evacuation as they constitute a war crime but Israel insists on keeping main West Bank settlement blocks, especially around Jerusalem as part of Israel under any future peace deal.

west bank | israeli settlement | news report saed at imemc dot org