Despite an agreement between the Deputy Defense Minister and the Knessset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the army evicted Sabbath observers from Homesh on the Sabbath.

Large forces of soldiers and Border Guard police arrived in Homesh, in the Shomron (Samaria), after the onset of the Sabbath on Friday.  The first thing they did was take the food, drinks and personal belongings of those gathered there. The forces then detained some of the people there, holding them for over an hour, until 6 p.m.  Only then did another army vehicle arrive, for the purpose of taking them out of the site.

This, despite a recent agreement between Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai and the Knessset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that evictions of this sort would not be carried out on the Sabbath. Vilnai had agreed that there would be no Sabbath desecration in future evictions, in accordance with IDF General Staff regulations.

The Sabbath desecration involved in such evictions includes not only the soldiers and policemen, but also – against their will – the residents who are forced to travel on the Sabbath, miss Sabbath prayers, and more.



In violation of yet another previously-reached understanding, the police/army did not take the residents to the closest Jewish town – Shavei Shomron. Instead, they started driving towards the police station in Ariel. At one point, the army truck stopped, and police and army personnel began arguing whether to take them to Shavei Shomron or to the police station. The argument took over two hours, while the Sabbath observers were stuck in the truck.

Finally, at 9 p.m., the Jews were taken to Shavei Shomron - well after most of the town residents had completed their Sabbath meal.

Not the First Time

Homesh is the site of one of the four Jewish towns in Samaria that were destroyed during the Disengagement in 2005. Unlike Gaza, the area was never given over to control of the Palestinian Authority; a court ruled last year that it is not illegal for Jews to return to the site – and in fact, since mid-2007, groups of Jews have visited and remained there on a regular basis, conducting Torah study classes and meals.

The army, however, has evicted the Jews from the site and confiscated or destroyed their equipment many times, often on the Sabbath.

Homesh First Responds

The "Homesh First" organization released a statement after the Sabbath ended: "The people who were there are mostly those who have been there regularly ever since Jewish presence returned to the site two and a half years ago... The others also arrived many hours before the Sabbath began, in order to avoid false accusations by the IDF Spokesman… The Sabbath desecration was done purposefully, and is a disgraceful and illegal method of 'punishing' the Jews who are returning to Homesh."

"These evictions are done purposely on the Sabbath in order to break our spirit – but we will not break.... The.. approach that the army takes in illegally evicting us, on the Sabbath, shows that those who set the tone in the left-wing elite are truly driven to consternation by our return to Homesh. It shows how important it is in order to save our country from the grave situation to which these elements have brought us."

IDF Central Commander Gen. Itzik Barr is to be blamed for the tensions between the Jewish residents of the Shomron and the army, Homesh First claims– and calls for him to be deposed: "He has shown himself to be a provocateur and hostile to the Jewish settlement enterprise, someone who uses force to destroy the relationship between the army and the Jewish residents."

Barr recently forbade soldiers to accept invitations to eat at Jewish homes, but was forced to rescind it in the face of public criticism.