Mitzpe Kramim
Mitzpe KramimSpokesperson

The Israeli government and the Prime Minister’s Office are working on a new plan aimed at circumventing a recent Supreme Court demolition order and shielding an Israeli town in Samaria from destruction.

Last week, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against the town of Mitzpe Kramim, a community of some 45 families on the eastern edge of the Binyamin district of Samaria, overlooking the Jordan Valley.

The court accepted claims that large swaths of the town were built on privately-owned plots of land belonging to the nearby Palestinian Authority village of Deir Jarrir, and gave the state three years to evacuate and demolish 34 of the 45 buildings in Mitzpe Kramim. The remaining 11 buildings are unaffected by the ruling.

According to a report Wednesday morning on Reshet Bet, Settlement Affairs Minister Tzachi Hanegbi (Likud), the chief of the Binyamin Regional Council Yisrael Gantz, and the Acting Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office Ronen Peretz are drawing up a plan which would allow the 34 buildings in question to remain in place and prevent an evacuation of Mitzpe Kramim.

Under the plan, the Knesset would pass a new, narrowly-focused version of the Regulation Law, which was passed in late 2016 before being overturned by the Supreme Court.

This new version of the Regulation Law would apply only to Mitzpe Kramim, normalizing its status and allowing the government to use eminent domain to expropriate the land upon which the town was built, with compensation for the Arab owners.