Israeli forces evacuate Samaria outpost; four arrested

Members of Israel’s coalition expressed anger on Wednesday after Israeli security forces evacuated a Jewish outpost erected near the community of Ma’ale Michmash in Samaria. Four Jews were arrested during the evacuation.

Dozens of police and Civil Administration inspectors cleared out residential structures and an animal pen built on the hill.

The outpost, Givat Sde Yonatan, established a few months ago in the Binyamin region of southern Samaria, sits on private Palestinian land.

Elisha Yered, a former spokesman for the Otzma Yehudit Party, is one of the founders. Yered was arrested in August on suspicion of involvement in the killing of Kosai Ma’atan, 19, from the Arab village of Burqa. He was later released.

“While dozens of policemen and Civil Administration inspectors were destroying everything that came to hand, on a nearby hill the Arabs from the village of Deir Dibwan opposite, who are trying in every way to remove the strategic hill, celebrated with joyous cheers that someone was doing the work for them,” Yered tweeted.

Knesset member Limor Son Har-Melech of the Otzma Yehudit Party, took to X, formerly Twitter, to criticize another member of the coalition, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism Party, who is also in charge of civilian matters in Judea and Samaria:

“What’s gives Bezalel? Police forces and civil administration are now wreaking havoc on Givat Sde Yonatan in Binyamin. The youth building is being evacuated, the goat pen is being torn to pieces and all the equipment is being confiscated and put on a truck. Our right-wing government has apparently forgotten what it was elected for,” she wrote.

Givat Sde Yonatan has already been evacuated several times by the Civil Administration, Israel Hayom reported.

The Israel Defense Forces says that the hill is far from other communities and that its residents are in danger.

“This is an illegal outpost, whose location endangers its occupants,” an IDF spokesperson said.

The residents strongly reject the claims.