Photo Credit: Hillel Maeir / TPS
Knesset Speaker MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) visiting Amona in the Shomron, which is under threat of evacuation, with Avihai Boaron who heads the Amona public campaign. July 28, 2016

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the state will ask the High Court of Justice to delay the expulsion of Amona residents from their homes by 30 days.

The request will be based on the need to build new homes for the expelled residents, so the Amona evacuation does not end up becoming a repeat of the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza.

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The prime minister said in his opening remarks to the cabinet Sunday morning, “We are working overtime to find a responsible solution to the issue of Amona and for similar cases in the future.”

Netanyahu met with a forum of coalition party leaders on Sunday afternoon to discuss the issue.

At that meeting, it was also decided to postpone the first Knesset plenum reading of the Regulation Bill. The measure would retroactively legalized communities built on privately-owned land, reimbursing the owners in the process.

The proposed law faces a number of problems, among them legal issues in the international forum that Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit has said he cannot counter. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon has also stated his refusal to support the bill in its current form.

The Bayit Yehudi party led by Naftali Bennett is warning, however, that it will leave the coalition if the issue of Amona is not resolved before the bill is passed. Both issues must be addressed, Bennett has said, for the party to remain in the government.

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Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.