Bennett to advance Evyatar outpost legalization, settlers to evacuate

“We have made the right decision for the nation of Israel and the Land of Israel,” Nahala movement head Daniella Weiss said. “The strengths of Evyatar’s residents illuminate to the Zionist spirit.”

Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked hailed it as a “significant achievement” for the settlement of the Land of Israel.

The deal stipulates that the Evyatar residents have until the end of the week to leave the site, which overlooks Route 505 near the Tapuah junction in the Samaria region of the West Bank.

The structures placed there will remain and an army base will be immediately set up at the site. The Civil Administration will evaluate within six months the legal status of the hilltop, which is now classified as survey land. Once it has been determined that the hilltop is not private Palestinian property, it will be reclassified as state land. 

At that point, a yeshiva will be established at the site and the government will move to legalize Evyatar. It’s unclear if it will be authorized as an entirely new West Bank settlement, which is a rare occurrence, or as a new neighborhood of the Kfar Tapuah settlement, located on the opposite side of the junction.

Earlier this month, the Samaria Regional Council submitted a master plan for 100 Evyatar homes that would designate the outpost as a new neighborhood of Kfar Tapuah.

This is the second time this week that the settlers have announced a compromise deal to evacuate the outpost.

After the first announcement, Bennett cautioned that the deal was not yet done. The initial arrangement had called for a yeshiva to be placed at Evyatar at the start of August. But Defense Minister Benny Gantz objected to the placement of a yeshiva at Evyatar prior to the classification of its hilltop as state land.

The left-wing group Peace Now has claimed that Evyatar was built on land owned by the Palestinian villages of Yatma and Beita.