Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s sovereignty plan excludes dozens of small Israeli towns, settlement leaders say, according to a report by Kan Hadashot.
Twenty-five fledgling towns and outpost communities are not part of the maps being drawn up by the joint Israeli-American mapping committee responsible for drawing the boundaries of Israel’s upcoming sovereignty plan, according to the report, leaving hundreds of Israeli families outside of the area which will be placed under Israeli law.
Netanyahu is expected to bring the sovereignty plan to the Knesset for a vote sometime after July 1st, once the final boundaries have been delineated by the mapping team.
Ostensibly, the plan places the Jordan Valley and all Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria under Israeli law.
But according to settlement leaders and members of the Young Settlement Forum, 25 small towns across Judea and Samaria, home to some 2,000 people, are left outside of Israel’s legal borders under the plan.
In a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu, the forum and settlement leaders have requested that the government clarify the status of the towns in question under the sovereignty plan, and the normalization of their status.
“We request the immediate normalization of the status of all the young towns in the framework of the Deal of the Century plan, and to clarify to settlement leaders and residents what should be obvious: not a single town will be uprooted and not a single family will be evicted from their homes.”
The communities in question include towns which are close to two decades old, including Asael, which was established in 2002, in the Mount Hebron area, and is home to some 60 families.
Havat Gilad, established in Samaria in 2002, is home to some 50 families.
Dozens of families live in Givat Assaf near Beit El, north of Jerusalem, which was established in 2001.
Other towns excluded from the sovereignty plan include Einot Kedem, Pnei Kedem, Tzur Shalem, Sadeh Boaz, Tekoa Dalet, Adoraim, Havat Maon, Nogohot West, Sculley's Farm, Havat Gilad, Maoz Tzvi, Maale Yisrael, Saneh Yaakov, and multiple outpost communities adjacent to the towns of Itamar and Yitzhar.