Gush Etzion Being Surrounded by Illegal Arab Building

Palestinians crash press event spotlighting rise of illegal Arab city 
Gush Etzion Regional Council head Shlomo Ne'eman said the construction would surround the Israeli enclave.

(September 7, 2023 / JNS)

A press event for Hebrew-speaking journalists the Gush Etzion and Yesha councils sponsored on Thursday to bring attention to the illegal construction of an Arab city was disrupted by a large group of Palestinians who appeared on the scene.

“If there were no guns there, it could have erupted into serious violence. I think that was a deterrent,” said JNS reporter Josh Hasten, who was on the scene. He noted that about 10 of those in attendance were armed, including a security detail for Minister of Settlements and National Missions Orit Strock of the Religious Zionism Party. The press event was meant to be a low-key affair with journalists driven in jeeps about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from Kfar Eldad, a small Jewish community on the edge of the Judean Desert, to a spot overlooking the illegal Arab city currently under construction.

The sponsors set up chairs, a tent for shade and snacks, Hasten said. “Then all of a sudden some Arab guy comes up screaming like a madman in Arabic and in broken Hebrew: ‘This is my land. This is my plot. Get out of here. This was my grandfather’s.’

“More and more Arab cars kept coming up. In the day, you had about 50 cars there. There’s a road up to the top of the hill where we were. They blocked the road. And they were filming and screaming at us in Hebrew, Arabic and English, ‘Get off our land. Get out of here. We don’t want you here.’ They were going ballistic,” he said. 

What finally defused the situation was the arrival of the IDF toward the end of the event. The soldiers dispersed the Arabs, who gradually returned to their cars and left the area.

“I don’t know who made the call. Three soldiers came to back them off. By that time, we were basically wrapping up,” said Hasten.

Shlomo Ne’eman, who serves as both head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council and the Yesha Council, did his best to deliver his remarks amid the shouting and the honking of horns.

Ne’eman pointed out that the new city violated an agreement signed in 1998 between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, in which it was agreed to protect the area as a nature reserve; that no construction would ever take place there. 

Ne’eman said that the new Arab city was part of construction that would surround the Israeli enclave of Gush Etzion, a cluster of Israeli towns south of Jerusalem.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/375852