Yesh Din asks court to halt legalization of outpost
The left-wing group Yesh Din petitioned the High Court of Justice to halt the legalization of the Adei Ad outpost in the West Bank.
It turned to the court in the aftermath of a violent incident on January 26 that involved the Adei Ad security team, during which 38-yearold Hamdi Taleb Na’san, a Palestinian father of four, was killed on the edge of his village of al-Mughayir. The IDF has alleged that he was killed by a settler.
Yesh Din’s petition follows one it filed in 2014, asking the High Court to force the state to evacuate the unauthorized outpost, which was built in 1998 with a NIS 1.45 million grant from the Housing and Construction Ministry, but without the proper permits or approvals.
It was built in the Shiloh bloc, partially on state land and partially on private Palestinian property, according to the 2005 government report on outposts by Talia Sasson.
There are some 32 structures on the outpost, according to the left-wing NGO Peace Now, 14 of which were built in the same year that the petition was filed.
The outpost is situated on property whose classification is in dispute between the Civil Administration and the nearby Palestinian villages of Turmus Aya and Jalud.
In 1991 the administration reclassified land in that area, declaring as state land property that the two villages as well as Karyut and al-Mughayir contended was privately owned by its residents. It has subsequently reclassified as state land additional property in that area, which the two villages similarly claim to own.
The second declaration places the bulk of the Adei Ad outpost on state land, a move that opens the door for the state to legalize the fledgling community.
In a move that has frozen the 2014 petition to evacuate the outpost, the state has declared its intention to legalize it.
Yesh Din is protesting the second land declaration, which it said was done without granting the Palestinians the proper right to appeal.
“The declarations were made without granting impacted landowners the right to appeal the decision before an independent judiciary,” Yesh Din said in a statement to the media it made on Monday evening when it publicized its High Court petition.
“Amending the declaration expands the scope of state land in the area, which is intended to enable the state to retroactively legalize the unauthorized outpost,” it said.
Yesh Din further charged that the state was determined to legalize the outpost, no matter what the cost.
The new Yesh Din petition also impacts the future boundaries of the new settlement of Amihai in the Shilo bloc. Last summer, the Civil Administration said it planned to triple the size of Amihai, in a move that would include the Adei Ad outpost within the settlement’s borders.