MK Arieh Eldad (National Union) on Saturday night called on all those who
support Migron to head to the West Bank outpost to nonviolently protest its
pending demolition.
He issued his call after hearing from the residents
of the West Bank outpost that they believed border police might arrive there on
Sunday morning to forcibly remove its 50 families.
Security sources told
The Jerusalem Post, however, that the residents would be given until Tuesday to
leave of their own volition.
The High Court of Justice has ordered the 50
families who live in the hilltop community to leave their homes no later than
Tuesday.
But as of Saturday night, the only thing that was clear to the
residents was that they planned to refrain from violence.
There was no
consensus whether they would leave of their own free will or have the Border
Police and the IDF forcibly relocate them to a new modular housing site,
situated 2 kilometers away.
Some reports in the media and from activists
claimed the residents planned to leave as early as first thing Sunday
morning.
Migron spokesman Itai Chemo said there have been many community
meetings on the matter, but that no final decision had been taken.
On
Saturday night, resident Aviela Dietch was busy doing laundry and packing school
lunches for her children, even though she was unsure if she would be sending
them off to class on Sunday. Like everyone else in the outpost, she was waiting
to see what the morning would bring.
On Friday evening and again on
Saturday, residents and guests, including Binyamin Regional Council head Avi
Ro’eh, gathered together at Migron for what they feared was the community’s
final Shabbat.
They prayed in the synagogue and celebrated the birthday
of one of the outpost founders, Itai Harel.
Shabbat ended with a communal
havdala service that involved singing and dancing.
The High Court has
ordered the outpost evacuated because it was built without permits on land
classified by the state as belonging to private Palestinians.
Last month,
Migron residents filed a petition with the court claiming they recently
purchased three property lots on which 17 homes are located. They asked the
court to allow those 17 families to remain.
On Wednesday, the court
insisted that every family must leave the outpost, while agreeing that the
structure on lot No. 10 could remain intact until the investigation into the
validity of the purchase claim was completed.
The court ordered all other
outpost buildings be destroyed no later than September 11.
According to a
report prepared by Talia Sasson for the government in 2005, the outpost –
located in the Binyamin region of the West Bank, just outside of Jerusalem – was
built in May 2001 with NIS 4.3 million from the Construction and Housing
Ministry.
Migron residents, who have battled almost from the first days
of the community to keep their homes, have had a hard time comprehending that
they had finally reached a situation in which a reprieve was
impossible.
Even as they debated their next move, life in the outpost
continued on Thursday and Friday as residents went to work and children left for
school.
On Thursday evening, residents gathered for a sheva brachot meal
for a newly wed couple in the outpost, Chanan and Etel Cohen.
Their
wedding was held on Monday night, on the eve of a court hearing on Migron.
Unsure of what would happen, they had prepared a small caravan home to live
in.
On Thursday evening, the Cohens and their guests attended a communal
meeting, setting up folding chairs on the grass outside their homes as they
listened to their parents and the Migron rabbi discuss the Torah and offer them
blessings.
When most of the guests had left, in a moment of hope and
faith, Chanan and Etel hung a small mezuza on the doorpost of their home.