Israeli PM assures settlements in Jerusalem area

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday sought to assure residents of a cluster of settlements bordering Jerusalem, largely viewed by the world as illegal under international law, that the state is committed to their continued existence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) is surrounded by security guards as he gestures during a visit to a kindergarten on the first day of school in Jerusalem Aug 27, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

Addressing staff and students at an elementary school in Efrat, a community in Gush Etzion, a settlement bloc south of Jerusalem, Netanyahu vowed "Efrat and Gush Etzion are an integral, fundamental and evident part of greater Jerusalem".

"They are the southern gates of Jerusalem and will always be part of the State of Israel. We are building them with enthusiasm, faith and responsibility," the prime minister emphasized, according to a statement.

The remarks, made on the official opening of the school year in the country, came as security forces were gearing to oversee the razing of Migron, an unauthorized Jewish outpost elsewhere in the West Bank, whose residents had been ordered by the state to evacuate their homes by early Tuesday.

In March, the High Court of Justice reaffirmed that Migron, home to 50 families, was illegally built on privately-owned Palestinian land. The Aug 1 deadline that was originally set for its evacuation was postponed, however, after 17 families claimed to have purchased the land from its rightful owners.

Residents of Migron said they were hopeful that the Supreme Court, which will convene on Tuesday for further deliberations on a petition filed by the families, will ultimately allow some to remain in their homes.

In a rare statement on Sunday, Netanyahu, a staunch advocate of expanding the settlement enterprise, said the government respected the court's decision regarding Migron and would work to strengthen other settlements.

"We hope that (the evacuation) will be done in a peaceful way. We did so in Beit-El and we'll do it in Migron," Netanyahu told his cabinet, referring to a neighborhood at another West Bank settlement whose residents were evicted in July after several months of bitter altercations that rattled the Likud-led coalition.

The state said it has already completed the construction of alternate housing for the residents, located near a winery some two km from the site of their present homes.

Despite promises issued by Migron's residents that they would not resist their eviction, the army and police were preparing for the outbreak of violence on Tuesday.

Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, the head of COGAT, a body that administers the Defense Ministry's policies and directives in the West Bank, on Thursday sent a letter to Avi Ro'eh, a settler leader who oversees Migron, advising him to evacuate the outpost on time and warning that the army would forcibly evict its residents, if necessary.

Evacuations of outposts in the West Bank are rare and usually follow long years of intricate legal battles. The 2007 evacuation of one community named Amona resulted in bloody clashes between police and hundreds of settlers, with dozens of wounded on both sides.

The West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 war and later annexed, is home to some 350,000 Jewish settlers.

The Palestinians slate the area, whose Arab population is estimated at 2.3 million (according to a 2007 census conducted by the Palestinian Authority), to become part of their future state, and condition the resumption of negotiations with Israel on a complete halt to settlement construction.