Late Tuesday evening, Finance Minister and Settlement Ministry Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a statement regarding the demolition of a Palestinian house built in Area C. "The Civil Administration demolished a large-scale structure built illegally near Route 60 and Kiryat Arba. The activity was carried out in accordance with the instructions of Finance Minister and Defense Ministry Minister Bezalel Smotrich as part of the struggle against the takeover of open spaces in Judea and Samaria."
However, Civil Administration officials angrily told Israel Hayom on Wednesday morning that this was a coupon decree by Smotrich and his people, and that it did not stem from his directive, partly because it involved routine house demolitions. "He sentences us to a coupon. We carry out quite a few enforcements, which are carried out every day, regardless of one minister or another."
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The current house is one that the Kiryat Arba council has been complaining about for some time. Yesterday, Civil Administration personnel came and demolished the two-story house. According to the sources, this is not the first time that Palestinian homes have been demolished.
Senior Defense Ministry officials reacted angrily. "If the Civil Administration had been busy demolishing illegal structures and preserving open spaces, just as it is busy briefing and acting against the government, our situation on the ground would have been better.
Kiryat Arba, Photo: AFP
It should be noted that even in the settlements there were those who raised eyebrows at the announcement of the demolition of the house, as a kind of change in the existing situation. "The Civil Administration has been demolishing Palestinian homes for years, the problem is not a specific house, but that there are huge amounts of Palestinian homes being built and very few being demolished," said a settlement source. "To boast of one destroyed house is neither wisdom nor a change in the situation on the ground."
Last July, the head of infrastructure in the Civil Administration, Adam Avidan, revealed at a hearing of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee how many Palestinian structures had been demolished by the Civil Administration in the past year and a half. "1600 illegal Palestinian structures were identified in 2022, of which about 550 were demolished in the first half of 2023. As of today, there are 8000,<> illegal Palestinian structures, most of which have begun administrative enforcement and orders."
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