Commander of the IDF Central Command Major General Yehuda Fox (Fuchs) on Tuesday launched a widespread rampage of demolitions in Jewish communities in eastern Gush Etzion. Adjunct Minister in the defense ministry Bezalel Smotrich attacked Fox’s move and accused Fox of bypassing his authority by assigning the demolition “security urgency,” which was approved by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
According to Smotrich, this was not the first time Fox distorted the nature of demolition actions to evade a proper discussion of the move.
שני לוחמים במילואים יחזרו לבית הרוס: מאות שוטרי יס”מ ומג”ב מלווים בפקחי המנהל האזרחי וכלי הרס כבדים, פשטו סמוך לשעה 4 וחצי לפנות בוקר על מספר נקודות התיישבות הסמוכות לישוב פני קדם במזרח גוש עציון, בנוסף להרס הבתים שכלל בית בו התגוררה אחת המשפחות ובתיהם של שני לוחמים במילואים/¹ pic.twitter.com/rCsfRLwQHU
— שיראל ללום נהיר?? (@shirellaloom) January 9, 2024
Hundreds of policemen and demolition vehicles were assembled in the settlements in Judea which, unlike some settlements in Binyamin and Samaria have had no hostile interaction with their Arab neighbors. As usual, the first thing the cops did was confiscate residents’ cell phones to prevent the documentation of their actions. Tuesday’s demolition is concentrated in settlement clusters near Pnei Kedem in the southeastern part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, in the eastern Judean Mountains, facing Nahal Arugot.
So far, six houses have been demolished, including one home where a family was living. One of the settlers whose homes were demolished was a reserve soldiers who came home for a short respite only to discover that his home was no mor:
הלוחם שביתו נהרס ותועד מפונה על ידי השוטרים, ליד פני קדם במזרח גוש עציון, בהתייחסות ראשונה: pic.twitter.com/xNGt4VglYo
— ינון מגל (@YinonMagal) January 9, 2024
Smotrich’s staff said on Tuesday that “the demolition this morning was carried out against the directive of the minister. After the minister had given the order not to carry out the demolition, the commanding general decided to define the demolition as bearing immediate security urgency and thus bypassed the authority of the minister to get the approval of the defense minister.”
Meanwhile, the Central Command Commander is yet to evacuate the Bedouin illegal construction which has been lingering in almost the same location for years, nor is he doing anything to stop illegal Arab construction which is rampant in the entire eastern Gush Etzion and all over Judea and Samaria.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir accused Gallant of “destroying the settlement enterprise,” which constitutes the continuation of the pre-October 7 conceptzia and the security apparatus’s treatment of “friends as enemies and enemies as friends.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office released a statement: “In order to prevent a recurrence of events like what happened today in Gush Etzion, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered that as long as the war continues, the evacuation and demolition of the homes of fighters and reservists of settlers in Judea and Samaria must be stopped.”
