Amona, Mateh Binyamin

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Amona (Hebrew: עמונה) was an Israeli outpost in the central West Bank.

Located on a hill overlooking Ofra within the municipal boundaries of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, the village was founded in 1995 on privately owned Palestinian land.

In May 2014 an Israeli police investigation revealed the entire outpost lay on private Palestinian land, and that documents used by settlers to claim they had purchased the sites were forged.

[9] According to documents of the Israeli Civil Administration, the land had been cultivated and worked by local Palestinians until the outpost was erected, though the settlers claim that the site was a rocky hilltop before.

Back at the start of the 1980s, nine dunams he owns, planted with fig trees and grapevines, stopped laughing by force of various military orders preventing access to them.

Thirty-two dunams stopped laughing after the outpost of Amona was established at the end of the 1990s on private lands belonging to inhabitants of the villages of Silwad, Dir Jarir and Taibeh.

[15][16] In 2004, the Amana settlement organization completed the construction of nine permanent homes at Amona, all built illegally on privately owned land and appropriately registered to Palestinians.

[20] In March 2006, the Knesset parliamentary inquiry into the events at Amona determined that security forces had employed excessive brutality, striking protesters with clubs and charging them with horses.

In 2008, the Israeli non-governmental organization Yesh Din petitioned the Supreme Court on behalf of the Palestinian landowners, demanding the demolition of the entire outpost.

[24] At a High Court hearing on 20 August 2013, the state's attorney said that she believed the 24 July ruling applied only to those Amona residents whose names were attached to the petition.

[2] On 14 October 2013, the state asked the court for a new postponement, to prevent "harm of Israel's diplomatic interests", and because there is "no concrete petitioner"[15] (because it was a general claim).

This illegal construction on private land requires giving the highest priority to the enforcement of work stoppage and demolition orders.