JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli lawmaker confronted residents of a West Bank outpost.
"Living here are people to whom the law does not apply," said the Labor Party’s Yuli Tamir during a tour Wednesday of the Netiv Ha’avot outpost in Gush Etzion with other members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Tamir described the 35 Jewish families living on the outpost as "anarchists," Ha’aretz reported.
Tamir accused the residents, who live on land that a Palestinian family has claimed they own in a complaint filed in Israel’s Supreme Court, of breaking the national "consensus" on the Gush Etzion settlement bloc.
The Supreme Court has ordered the state to respond to the Palestinian family’s complaint by next month.
Also Wednesday, Ynet reported that Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently authorized an additional 37 new housing units in the West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron, located southwest of Nablus. The approval came just weeks after Barak allowed the construction of 455 housing units in other West Bank settlements.
Barak reportedly promised the family of Capt. Benaya Rein, a soldier killed in the Second Lebanon War, that they would be able to build a new neighborhood next to their family’s home in Karnei Shomron.
