Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has suggested that the 40 families could be relocated to plots of land adjacent to the outpost.
Attorney General Avihai Mandelblit on Sunday night said it could be possible to use the abandoned property law to relocate the West Bank Amona outpost to a nearby plot of land that was privately owned by Palestinians.
“There is no legal impediment to examine the status of the adjacent property lots [next to Amona] which could, according to an initial indication, be considered absentee property,” Mandelblit said.
He spoke a meeting in his office with members of his staff, relevant attorneys and government representatives to discuss the Amona outpost, which the High Court of Justice has ordered must be demolished by the end of December.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has suggested that the 40 settler families could be relocated to plots of land adjacent to the outpost.
Those lots are privately owned by Palestinians and so the relocation would require the use of the abandoned property law.
Mandelblit was expected to rule on the matter by the end of August, but has already delivered an initial response on the matter.
In the statement released from his office, Mandelblit clarified that the Amona families must adhered to the December demotion date that was set by the High Court of Justice in 2014.
A spokesman for the Amona outpost said the families still believe that the best way to handle the issue is through legislation that would retroactively legalize settler homes built on private Palestinian property in return for compensating the property owners. Mandelblit has already ruled that such legislation is unconstitutional. It is presumed that in the end, the Amona families would agree to voluntarily relocate to a nearby plot of land.
The Amona outpost was first built in 1995 on the outskirts of the Ofra settlement. In response to a Peace Now petition against the outpost, the High Court of Justice ruled that it must be razed because it was built without permits on private Palestinian property.
The Amona families have argued that they were given initial nods of approval from government officials to build their community of modular homes. In addition, they were given a NIS 2.1 million grant for infrastructure from the Ministry of Construction and Housing.
As reported by The Jerusalem Post