Permanent Settlement Declared on West Bank
Jewish settlers inaugurated a West Bank community Wednesday in a high-profile challenge to government promises to bar new settlement on land that Arabs claim for a future Palestinian state.
“We won’t let them take it. This is my home,” Oshrat Aton, 21, said at the celebration declaring a permanent settlement at Rehalim, 25 miles north of Jerusalem near the Palestinian city of Nablus.
Indicating at least unofficial government support, Deputy Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra attended the ceremony and praised the settlers’ determination. “We won’t move from here,” he said.
Successive Israeli governments, including that of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, have said they would expand settlements to accommodate natural population growth but not establish new ones. The ceremony at Rehalim apparently marked the first time that permanent houses have been built in a settlement that the government officially views as illegal.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian Authority would protest Rehalim’s establishment to the United States and Europe, which have called on Israel to stop building settlements.
Rehalim is named for a mother of seven slain by Palestinian gunmen in 1991.
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