Attorney Menashe Yaddo, representing the Honenu legal organization, wrote to the Commander of Central Command, Maj. Gen. Roni Numa, to say that the evacuation of Amona was carried out illegally since it began prior to the evacuation order date, which does not authorize the removal of the residents.
Yaddo wrote that the security personnel did not present any warrants or legal documents to the evacuees which would be required for a lawful evacuation.
Yaddo's letter reads:
"The only order which was placed in the area was posted on 1/31/2017 at 1:00 in the afternoon. This order does not establish grounds for eviction, because any of the following reasons:
"Section 4A of the Order states that its application is to take place 48 hours after its publication, which would have been on 2/2/2017 at 1:00 PM and not before. Therefore, all evacuations which were carried out were illegal.
"Section 4 exceeds - unknowingly - Section 4 of Qualifying Order 1539, sets a delay of eight days from the date of publication until the date of validation of the performance of the order. It is not clear how you can sign an authorization order and knowingly exceed the instructions of the order. It goes without saying that the provision of the authorization order does not come into effect until 8/2/2-2017.
"The Qualifying Order and subsequent orders are often interpreted, including very recently, as proscribing that that the orders do not prohibit remaining in the area unless there is construction taking place, and the command's legal adviser should know of this ruling."
Yaddo added that the District Court's recent ruling posed a question about whether or not it is possible to remain in an area ordered to be evacuated when there is no construction but in any event it was still determined that it was not permitted to carry out the order until eight days after being issued.
He added that under Section 8 of the Qualifying Order the order cannot be carried out until a hearing has been held to hear objections to the order. "The bottom line is that the notification was not suitable to carry out the evacuation order, and therefore the action was illegal."