The Nahala settlement movement on Wednesday announced a “giant march to Evyatar – we will remind [the powers that be], together with all the people of Israel, that we have not forgotten the Land of Israel, that the unity of the nation is important to us, and above all – that we have not forgotten Evyatar.”
The march is scheduled for the fourth day of Chol Hamoed Pesach, Monday, April 10. Thousands are expected to participate, including rabbis, government ministers, MKs and other dignitaries. According to the organizers, the IDF approved the march. The same organizers thanked the IDF officials who approved the march and called on the people of Israel to come and express their support for Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel.
Eviatar is an outpost on the back of the eastern slopes of the Samaria mountains, part of the Samaria Regional Council, some two kilometers east of the Tapuach junction. It used to be an IDF post. The first attempt to establish a Jewish settlement there it was in April 2013, and it was named after Evyatar Borovsky who was murdered in an attack at Tapuach junction. The outpost was demolished on the order of the Chief of the Central Command.
In May 2021, the outpost was resettled by a nucleus of several families from the area, who decided to take action a few hours after another shooting attack at Tapuach junction in which Yehuda Guetta Hy’d was murdered. Samaria Regional Council assisted the 53 families who came to the site by erecting permanent buildings and establishing an infrastructure in just a few days.
On July 2, 2021, the outpost was evacuated peacefully as part of a compromise with the Lapid-Bennet government, according to which the state would examine the legal status of the land, and it is recognized as state land, the residents would be allowed to resettle there.
In October 2021, the Civil Administration completed its survey and declared that approximately 15 acres of the Evyatar settlement were state lands where a legal settlement could be established. However, despite the survey’s findings, the state lands were never declared as such, because the promises of Defense Minister Benny Gantz who made the promise to the settlers when he served in Netanyahu’s government, were disregarded by Defense Minister Benny Gantz who served in the Lapid government.
On February 2, 2022, on his last day in office, AG Avichai Mandelblit approved the outline according to which the Evyatar lands would be declared state lands. And that was the last we’ve heard on the issue of the security apparatus keeping its promises.
One year later, on February 26, 2023, following the drive-by murder of two Jewish brothers in Huwara, some 450 Jewish settlers returned to their homes in Evyatar. On February 27, the Otzma Yehudit Knesset faction led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir held its regular meeting in Evyatar, and ben Gvir
contacted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking to legalize the settlement.
On March 2, Otzma MK Zvi Sukkot established his office in Evyatar, but security forces dismantled the office about an hour later.
If only they showed up with similar haste when Jewish motorists are attacked by Arab terrorists on the roads of Samaria…
And so, following this familiar saga of broken promises and vile attempts to quash Jewish life in the liberated territories, be it by the Bennet, Lapid, or Netanyahu governments, the nation is urged to show up in Evyatar and force the powers that be, elected, deep state, permanent, and temporary, to keep their word: the settlement has been shown to be legal, let the settlers come back.
