Israel government asks court to delay settlers' eviction

The Israeli government Tuesday asked the country's supreme court for a "final" extension of a deadline to evict 40 families from a West Bank settlement outpost, the justice ministry said.

The court ruled in 2014 that the settlers at Amona, northeast of Ramallah, must go because the outpost was found to have been built on private Palestinian land in the occupied territory.

It gave them two years to relocate, ordering they must be gone by December 25, 2016.

In a last-ditch effort to avoid evicting the politically influential settlers by force, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came up with a plan Sunday to relocate their hilltop outpost peacefully.

Now he needs more time in which to implement it.

"The state filed to the court a request for a final postponement of 45 days from the deadline set by the court, that is to say until February 8, 2017," the justice ministry said in a statement.

It did not say when the court would deliver its response.

The agreement envisions moving 24 of the 40 families to a nearby parcel of land considered to be abandoned.

Another parcel would be reserved for the remaining families.

Amona residents said in a statement that the plan would see a total of 52 homes and public structures erected in the new areas.

But legal issues linked to the two plots could still pose problems.

Rights group Yesh Din said the Palestinian landowner of one of the plots in question was filing an appeal against the plan. 

The dispute over whether to demolish the outpost has taken on international importance because of concern over settlement expansion in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967.

All Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, are seen as illegal under international law, but Israel differentiates between those it has approved and those it has not.

Settlements such as Amona are called outposts -- those that Israel has not approved.

Israeli settlements are seen as major stumbling blocks to peace efforts as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

Source: AFP