Beit El: Building resumes atop ruins of razed structures

Residents of the Samaria community of Beit El held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new construction project in the settlement, a mere day after two contested structures were demolished on the very same plot.

The original structures, dubbed the Dreinoff compound, were razed after the High Court of Justice ruled that they were built illegally. In the days leading up to the demolition, tempers flared among Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, who even obtained retroactive construction permits from authorities, but to no avail.

The new project has been greenlighted by the Civil Administration, which handles zoning issues across Judea and Samaria, and residents now hope the High Court would lift the temporary injunction barring further construction at the site.

"We are duty-bound to continue building and to further develop the settlement enterprise," Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said at the ceremony.

"Today we lay the cornerstone for 300 housing units," she told the crowd. "By doing this, the government is sending a message that we must continue settling the land. After the High Court of Justice famously decided to let the community of Elon Moreh stand, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin said, 'We will have many more Elon Morehs,' and he then added more communities and paved the way for construction on state-owned land," she said.

"We must continue along this path. By settling 500,000 Jews [beyond the Green Line] we created a new reality that prevents their eviction or uprooting by anyone, anywhere; we must continue building, even as we uphold the rule of law."

In northern Samaria, where the community of Sa-Nur once stood, police evicted activists who had arrived several days earlier.

The images bore a striking resemblance to what unfolded almost exactly 10 years ago, when Israeli troops evicted residents as part of the disengagement from the Gaza Strip: Activists could be seen singing, dancing, fighting police or trying to passively resist being put on trucks.

Although the activists had managed to bus some 150 teens to the area to complicate the police's efforts, the area was cleared of squatters within four hours, and no arrests were made.