Four-and-a-half years after the destruction of 15 homes in Elazar’s Netiv Ha’avot neighborhood, Wednesday morning, the Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Committee greenlighted 433 housing units in the neighborhood.
In addition, over 1,000 units were approved throughout Gush Etzion, and the eastern Gush community of Pnei Kedem was officially registered within the Israel Land Registry.
We remember all too well Israel’s Supreme Court order of the demolition of 15 Netiv Ha’avot homes, which was carried out in June 2018. The court ordered the entire houses destroyed even though only a mere two precent of the buildings were built on land where the ownership was in question.
Gush Etzion Regional Council Head Shlomo Ne’eman responded favorably, “Today’s approval of over 400 units, to be built alongside the 68 homes currently in Netiv Ha’avot, along with the other approvals throughout Gush Etzion and Judea and Samaria as a whole, is a tremendous boost.
While this is certainly great news, it cannot erase the horrible destruction of Jewish homes and lives. Nothing can bring back what once was. We can only hope that under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new coalition that new communities are built throughout Gush Etzion, Judea and Samaria, and the entire Land of Israel.