Deal struck to avoid forced evacuation of Israeli settlers

AMONA OUTPOST, Palestinian Territories: Residents of a wildcat settlement in the occupied West Bank agreed to a plan Sunday to relocate their hilltop outpost peacefully that could allow Israel’s government to avoid a potentially violent stand- off.

The 40 families living at Amona northeast of Ramallah face a High Court order to leave the site by December 25 because it was found to have been built on private Palestinian land.

The approaching deadline led to a scramble to peacefully resolve the situation, with the settlers refusing to leave and several hundred hardline youths streaming into the outpost in recent days in support.

But after hours of debate, outpost residents approved a revised government proposal to relocate by a vote of 45 for and 29 against, a spokesman wrote on the outpost’s Twitter account.

“After 20 years of pioneering settlements against all odds, and after two long years, we have decided to suspend the struggle,” Amona residents said in a statement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier pressured outpost residents to accept the deal, saying “we have done the maximum”.

“Until dawn this morning we made very great efforts to reach an agreed solution on Amona,” Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

The agreement, which would see residents moved to two nearby plots, still faces legal obstacles and possible derailment, however.

Young protesters who set up camp in the outpost’s synagogue and built fortifications inside, including with chains and metal rods, filed out after the agreement was announced over the public address system, trudging down the hill and hitching rides.

Religious nationalist hardliners, who favour annexing the West Bank and oppose a Palestinian state, said they sympathised with the residents but regretted they had agreed to the plan. — AFP