A tour of about 100 Eretz Israel Lobby activists from central Israel, led by MK Yoav Kish (Likud) and MK Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi), was harassed and then physically attacked by a mixed group of leftwing Jewish activists and PA Arabs, when they visited the squatters’ enclave outside Susiya, in Area C, where the Supreme Court has ordered the Israeli government to demolish the illegal Arab shacks lean-to structures of the Nawaj’ah family, but work there is being delayed because of EU and US pressure. The leftwing and Arab demonstrators yelled anti-Israel slogans and waved signs condemning the Regavim movement, which is dedicated to enforcing court decisions against illegal Arab construction everywhere.
Eretz Israel Lobby Co-Chairman MK Kish said in a statement, “We witness today an irregular case of an illegal Palestinian takeover of the South Mount Hebron areas, a treasure trove of ancient Jewish settlement from more than 1,500 years ago. I focus all our forces and efforts to prevent this trend, and it will be stopped.”
Co-Chairman MK Smotrich said in a statement, “The illegal village of the Nawaj’ah family is a stain on the State of Israel. It’s a settlement of former Yatta Village residents who established themselves on State lands over two decades. The court has ruled time and again that these illegal dwellings must be evacuated and yet there’s no response. The US State Dept., in a rude and inappropriate intervention, demands that the State of Israel permit the illegal village to stay, and we have come today to protest this intervention in internal Israeli policy and to demand the immediate removal of this illegal village.”
Mount Hebron Regional Council Head Yochai Damari said there was a connection between the failure to enforce court decisions on the ground in Susiya and the revival of Arab terror attacks in Jerusalem and Hebron. And Regavim CEO Yehuda Eliyahu called on the Prime Minister not to surrender to the unacceptable pressures from abroad and to act in the best interests of the State of Israel while maintaining the rule of law.