Israel's Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir agree to legalise controversial evacuated settlement
Israel's Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed with far-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir to enable Jewish settlers to return permanently to the evacuated illegal outpost of Homesh, in the north of the occupied West Bank.
Homesh was first evacuated in 2005 as part of an Israeli disengagement plan that pulled forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip and some West Bank settlements. Currently, settlers visit the area and operate the Homesh yeshiva, which serves as a de facto outpost.
Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir agreed on Wednesday to introduce an amendment to the Disengagement Law, passed during the term of former prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2005, which would legalise Homesh.
The deal is part of coalition talks as Netanyahu attempts to form a government after his Likud party won a majority of seats in the 1 November election.
According to Haaretz, the amendment would take effect within 60 days of forming the government.
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'These understandings strike at any possibility of achieving peace and establishing an independent Palestinian state'
- Nabil Abu Rudeineh, PA's spokesperson
The Religious Zionism political alliance, which Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power is part of, is expected to play an influential role in the upcoming Israeli government.
Ben-Gvir had asked to be appointed as the minister of public security, while his ally Bezalel Smotrich asked to be the minister of defence.
Ben-Gvir, a settler in the Kiryat Araba illegal settlement, relied heavily on votes from the settler communities in the West Bank to help the alliance win 14 seats in the Knesset.
Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu also agreed to broaden the so-called Dromi Law - which legalises violent self-defence of property - to include the exemption of theft of arms and weapons from military bases, and to establish a yeshiva religious school for youth in the illegal outpost of Evyatar, whose settlers were also evicted last year.
Ben-Gvir tweeted on Wednesday that there had been "important progress for the establishment of a full right-wing government," without elaborating.
More outposts
Evyatar was established by settlers in May 2021, amid the political and media focus on the Israeli assault on Gaza and the violent crackdown on Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli settlers moved to Jabal Sabih, located on the southern outskirts of the Palestinian village of Beita, and established Evyatar.
Within days, settlers installed mobile houses, built roads and raised an Israeli flag over the settlement.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the Palestinian Authority's spokesperson, said that Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir's agreement "goes against international law".
"These understandings strike at any possibility of achieving peace and establishing an independent Palestinian state, based on the principle of the two-state solution, and in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy," Abu Rudeineh said.
He added that "the Palestinian people and their leaders adhere to the national position of the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 4 June, 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital."
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